^ 



Series XX . No. 4 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 

IN 

Historical and Political Science 

(Edited 1882-1901 by H. B. Adams.) 
J. M. VINCENT 

J. H. HOLLANDER W. W. WILLOUGHBY 

Editors 




INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 
IN ALABAMA 



By WILLIAM ELEJIUS MARTIN 

Professor of History in Emory and Henry College 



BALTIMORE 
THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 

PUBLISHED MONTHLY 

APRIL, 1902 



JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 

IN 

Historical and Political Science. 

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INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 
IN ALABAMA 



Series XX No. 4 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 

IN 

Historical and Political Science 

(Edited 1882- 1901 by H. B. Adams.) 

J. M. VINCENT 
J. H. HOLLANDER W. W. WILLOUGHBY 

Editors 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 
IN ALABAMA 



By WILLIAM ELEJIUS MARTIN 

Professor of History in Emory and Henry College 



BALTIMORE 
THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 

PUBLISHED MONTHLY 

APRIL, 1902 






iTHE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN. 14 1902 

. COPVIOHT ENTRY 

Ci.AS?^ XXa No 



COPY B. 



Copyright, 1902, by 
JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 



ZU £orb (g!ttfHmor« (prcco 

THE FRIEDENWAI-D COMPANY 
BALTIMORE, MI). 



PREFACE 

This paper is an effort to trace the development of the 
public highways of Alabama, and to point out their in- 
fluence upon immigration and settlement. It indicates 
briefly what has been done within the state by the Fetl- 
eral Government in improving rivers and harbors and in 
aiding the construction of railroads ; and discusses finally 
the policy of Alabama respecting public aid to such works. 

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the late Pro- 
fessor Herbert B. Adams and to Professor J. M. Vincent, 
from both of whom I received helpful instruction in the 
methods of historical study; also to Dr. J. C. Ballagh for 
the suggestion of this topic and for his continued interest 
during the progress of the work. 

Johns Hopkins Univeusitt, 
June, 1901. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter I.— Development of Highways. 

Indian Paths g 

Trading Roads 12 

Federal Roads 15 

Stage and Express Lines 27 

Road System of Alabama 29 

Chapter II. — River and Harbor Improvements. 

State Aid 33 

Improvements by the Federal Government 42 

1. The Tennessee 42 

2. The Chattahoochee 48 

3. The Tallapoosa 48 

4. The Choctawhatchee 49 

5. The Coosa 50 

6. The Cahaba 52 

7. The Conecuh and Escambia 52 

8. The Alabama 53 

9. Mobile Harbor 54 

ID. The Tombigbee 57 

11. The Warrior 60 

12. The Black Warrior 61 

Chapter III. — Construction of Railroads. 

Federal Land Grants 64 

The Two and Three Per Cent Funds 68 

State Aid : Policy Prior to the Civil War "jz 

State Aid Since the Civil War 79 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ALABAMA 



CHAPTER I 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHWAYS 

Indian Paths. 

From Indian trails to trade routes, from trade routes to 
pioneer roads has been the line of evolution along which 
the public highways of Alabama have developed. When 
the curtain of Alabama's history first rises the Cherokee 
Indians were dwelling in their mountain homes in the 
northeastern portion of the state. West and southwest of 
the Cherokees were the Chicasas whose territory included 
the greater part of the Tennessee Valley, embracing the 
northwestern tier of the present counties of Alabama, 
reaching westward as far as the headwaters of the Yazoo 
River in the state of Mississippi. 

The western and southwestern portions of the state 
were occupied by the Choctaws, " The Maubilians with 
whom De Soto came in collision on the lower Alabama 
and the Tuskaloosa, and partly exterminated." ' Their 
territory, reaching westward from the Tombigbee River, 
covered all that part of the present state of Mississippi 
which lies south of latitude 33° 30'. 

East of the Choctaws were the Muscogees or Creeks. 
" When first known to the white colonists," says Brewer, 
" this domain stretched from the Tombigbee to the At- 
lantic, but they were gradually driven west of the Ocmul- 
gee and FHnt. Their principal towns were on the Talla- 

' Brewer, Alabama, p. 16. 



10 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [128 

poosa and Chattahoochee. Their war trail extended to 
the Mobile Bay and the Florida Everglades." " The 
Hillabees," the same author continues, " Autaugas, Cusse- 
tas, Eufaulas, Ocfuskees, Uchees, etc., were names which 
attached to the Muscogees residing in those towns." ^ 

We thus have a general line of Confederated Creek' 
towns, dotting the territory of Alabama and Georgia, the 
most easterly of them being located on the site of the 
present city of Augusta.* Each town had its own " Micco " 
or King, but there was a Grand Chief of the Confederation, 
who presided over the National Councils and led them to 
battle. The capital of the nation was Tookabatcha, on 
the Tallapoosa River, a few miles above its confluence with 
the Coosa, and here the chiefs and representatives of all 
the towns gathered annually, in May, to consult on matters 
of general interest. The towns were brought in touch 
also by social features, it being a regular custom, for 
example, for warriors of one town to challenge those of 
another for a game of ball, their national amusement. 
The challenge having been accepted, the contestants would 
repair to the appointed spot, followed by throngs of their 
respective townsmen, and the battle would be fought amid 
the shouts of their enthusiastic spectators. This constant 
contact, town with town, not only resulted in a network 
of paths running from village to village, uniting the 
" Upper Creeks " on the Coosa and the Tallapoosa rivers 
with the " Lower Creeks " on the Chattahoochee, but also 
produced a well beaten, clearly marked line of communi- 
cation from the eastern boundaries of Georgia to the west- 

*To gather in village communities was characteristic of the 
Creek Indians. Thus, Bartram in his Travels (p. 462), tells us 
that there were in 1777 " Fifty-five towns, beside many villages not 
enumerated." 

' The Muscogee Indians were all called " Creeks " by the English 
explorers and traders on account of the many beautiful rivers and 
streams which flowed through their extensive domain. Pickett, 
vol. i, p. 29. • 

* Pickett, vol i, p. 81. 



129] Tlie Development of Highways. 11 

ern portions of Alabama. This main path, known as the 
" Southern Trail " led in early times probably from the 
site of the present Augusta, crossing the Oconee River 
just below Milledgeville, striking the Ocmulgee at the foot 
of the Ocmulgee fields," proceeding westward to Coweta 
(near Columbus) where the Chattahoochee was crossed, 
thence across the Tallapoosa at Tookabatcha, then almost 
due west to the Coosa, then up the river to " Coosa Old 
Town " (in the fork of the Talladega and Kiamulgee 
Creeks) and from here moving westward across the Cahaba 
River near Cahaba Old Town and thence into the settle- 
ments along the Tombigbee, and running still further to 
the northwest reaching the Chicasas in northwest Alabama 
and northeast Mississippi. From Coosa there was also a 
trail running southwestwardly into the Mobile Country.' 

Another route leading from the Georgia Country, called 
the " High Town Path," " started from High Shoals on 
Apolachi River, which is the southern branch of the Okone 
River, and went almost due west to ' Shallow Ford ' of 
Chattahuchi River, about twelve miles north of Atlanta, 
Georgia, in the river bend." ' 

Continuing, the trail led to High Town or Etowah, and 
the other towns bordering on the Cherokee district and 
finally reached the Chicasa Country. There were many 
other similar paths but for our purpose these are the two 
most important, as the traders from the Carolinas and 
Georgia followed this general system of paths in penetrat- 
ing the interior of Alabama and reaching the various 
Indian tribes with their wares. 

' Bartram, Travels, p. 52. These fields were about 70 or 80 miles 
above the confluence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers. 

° See map in American Gazetteer, vol i, London, 1762. Repro- 
duced in Winsor's Westward Movement, p. 31. 

' Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, p. 151. Here 
the path is called " High Tower Path," but should be as above, as 
is shown in Carey's American Atlas (Philadelphia, 1795). Repro- 
duced in Winsor's Westward Movement, p. 383. The path was 
so called from the village " High Town," the most northerly town 
of the Creeks. 



12 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [130 

Trading Roads. 

In 1702 the French established on the Mobile Bay, at the 
mouth of Dog River, " Fort St, Louis de la Mobile," the 
first white settlement ever made in what is now Alabama. 
These French Colonists, anxious to gain the friendship of 
all the Indians on the Mobile River and its tributaries, 
proceeded at once to send out emissaries that treaties of 
peace and trade might be made. This point. Mobile,* 
early became the capital of French-America. Their plan 
was to form a strong line of forts," along the Mississippi 
Valley, from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and thus pre- 
pare themselves to resist the pressure of the expansive 
English, and to control the trade of the Indians. 

But the colonists of Carolina, as is characteristic of the 
English stock, had already heard " the voice of duty," 
had already taken up the " white man's burden " and were 
carrying some of the " blessings of civiUzation " to these 
Indian tribes. These pioneer traders had two paths, one 
leading from Charleston by the Indian town Keowee (near 
the source of the Savannah River and where Fort Prince 
George was built in 1755) thence westward along the 
ridge dividing the tributaries of the Tennessee and Savan- 
nah Rivers, thus practically following the boundaries be- 
tween the Creek and Cherokee towns, and then follow- 
ing at will the " High Town Path," already described, and 
leading ultimately into the Chicasa Country. 

Another route, and the one most formidable to French 
interests, was the old Indian trail mentioned above as the 



° In 1711 the fort was moved further up the bay to the mouth 
of Mobile river, thus establishing the present site of Mobile. 

' Among others may be mentioned Fort Toulouse, established 
in 1714, at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa; Fort Tom- 
becbe, in 1735 on the Little Tombigbee river, at what is now 
Jones' BlufT; Fort Assumption, on the Chicasa BlufT, now Mem- 
phis, here a trading post was established by LaSalle as early as 
1673; Fort Duquesne, at the mouth of the Monongahela, near 
Pittsburg, in 1754. 



131] The Development of Highways. 13 

" Southern Trail " and which Bartram in his " Travels " 
calls the " Great Trading Path." At a very early date the 
Carolinians had established Fort Moore, near where the 
present Augusta, Georgia, is situated, as a frontier trading 
post. Hard by, on the same river, was Silver Bluff, " A 
pleasant villa, the property and seat of G. Golphen, 
Esquire, a gentleman of very distinguished talents and 
great liberality, who possessed the most extensive trade, 
connections and influence, amongst the south and south- 
west Indian tribes, particularly with the Creeks and Choc- 
taws." " This being the site of an old Creek town, as al- 
ready mentioned, and being the terminal point of the old 
Creek trail, accounts in a measure for the location of these 
three points. Along this trail the traders and emissaries 
from Carolina pushed their way into the Creek Country, 
and the Georgians after the founding of their colony in 
1732, at once proceeded to add to their numbers in pushing 
the Red Man westward and following him with their wares. 

The French usually carried on their trade from Mobile 
by river; there was, however, a land route to Fort Tou- 
louse." Tliere was also a good road running through the 
Choctaw Country west of, and not far from the Tombigbee 
and Mobile rivers by which the Choctaws traded with the 
French. Another road ran from Mobile to the Chicasa 
towns." There were, likewise, routes by which the traders 
from Pensacola reached the Choctaws and Creeks. 

These main routes, intersected as they were by many 
hunting paths, were not easily followed by any but a " good 

'" Bartram, p. 312. 

" Fort Toulouse was built by Bienville in 1714, near the junc- 
tion of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, a strategic position for 
controlling the Indian trade. Upon its abandoned site was 
erected Fort Jackson a century later. To checkmate this French 
move the Georgia colonists built a stockade about forty miles 
further up on the Tallapoosa, and this fort, Ocfuskee, for several 
years served as the rendezvous of the British traders. Pickett, 
Alabama. Adair, American Indians. 

" Dow's Life and Works, p. loi. 



14 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [132 

woodsman " as the pioneer Methodist preacher, Lorenzo 
Dow, notes of his trip in 1803 from the Oconee River to 
the Natchez Country. Although he had provided himself 
with a map and with a compass he frequently lost his way, 
the one on whom he " depended as guide knowing nothing 
about the roads." The distance of four hundred miles 
from the Oconee to the Alabama Rivers he made in thir- 
teen and a half days. 

In 1776 the English botanist, Bartram, joined a com- 
pany of traders in Georgia, and with them made the trip 
through the Creek Country to Mobile. Of this he gives 
us an interesting sketch," from which we may gather some 
idea as to the modes of travel along these roads. The 
band, consisting of twenty men and sixty horses, fording 
the Oconee, the Ocmulgee, and the Flint, pushed westward 
to the Chattahoochee at Uchee Town (near the present 
Columbus) where the Indians carried their goods across 
in canoes. Then the traders dispersed among the Indian 
towns while Bartram wended his way to Mobile. Passing 
Coolome, a trading center near the junction of the Coosa 
and Tallapoosa, he moved along parallel with the Alabama 
near the present site of Montgomery. Here the trail 
bears away to the south, leaving the Alabama at some dis- 
tance, crossing the head waters of the " Schambe " 
(Escambia) River and finally reaching Taensa about thirty 
miles above " Fort Conde " or " City of Mobile." 

He returned in November, 1777, by practically the same 
route, with another trading band consisting of the " chief 
trader," two packhorsemen, with twenty to thirty horses, 
sixteen of which were alternately loaded with packs of 
one hundred and fifty pounds each. " They seldom de- 
camp," the author declares, " until the sun is high and hot; 
each one having a whip of the toughest cow skin, they start 
all at once, the horses having ranged themselves in reg- 
ular Indian file, — then the chief drives with the crack 

"Bartram's Travels, pp. 372-461. 



133] Tlie Development of Highways. 15 

of his whip and a whoop or shriek, which rings through 
the forests and plains — when we start all at once, keeping 
up a brisk and constant trot, which is incessantly urged 
and continued as long as the miserable creatures are able 
to move forward, — every horse has a bell on which being 
stopped when we start in the morning with a twist of 
grass or leaves, soon shakes out and they are never 
stopped again during the day. Tlie constant ringing of 
the bells, smacking of whips, whooping, and too frequent 
cursing these miserable quadrupeds cause an incessant up- 
roar and confusion inexpressibly disagreeable." The 
merchandise was conveyed across the swollen streams on 
rude rafts made of trunks of trees and bundles of cane 
bound together by vines and withes. A narrower stream 
they would cross by a " sapling felled across it, which is 
called a raccoon bridge." Over this the traders could 
lightly trip with a load of a hundred pounds, while Bartram 
" was scarcely able to shufHe himself along over it astride." 
"A portable leather boat about eight feet long, of thick 
sole-leather,, folded up and carried" on their horses was 
another device these traders employed in crossing streams. 
These boats with the help of a few saplings for " keels and 
gunwhales " could be rigged up in half an hour and would 
carry " ten horse loads " according to Adair. The latter 
tells us that " few take the trouble to paddle the canoe, 
for as they are commonly hardy and also of an amphibious 
nature, they usually jump into the river and thrust it 
through the deep part of the water to the opposite shore." " 

Federal Roads. 

The clauses in the Constitution of the United States 
which empower the Federal Congress " To provide for 
the Common Defense and general Welfare " of the nation 

" Adair, American Indians, London, 1775. 

Adair was an English trader who resided for forty years among 
the Creeks and long held them to the English side in spite of the 
efforts of the French. 



16 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [134 

and " To establish Post Offices and Post Roads," subject 
as they have been to very elastic interpretations, form the 
basis upon which have been founded the policy and practice 
of internal improvements by the Federal Government. 
We find that James Madison in 1796 advocated the ex- 
amination and survey of a " general route most proper for 
the transportation of the mail from Maine to Georgia." " 

By act of May 17, 1796, it was declared that " three 
tracts of land, not exceeding one mile square each " should 
be gran'ted to Ebenezer Zane for opening a road from 
Wheeling to Limestone (Maysville, Kentucky) and for the 
establishment of ferries over the Muskingum, Hocking, 
and Scioto Rivers." This road, as will be seen, lay 
throughout its entire length in territorial lands, and was 
the first item of internal improvement to receive aid from 
the Federal Government. " From that day to the present " 
(1824), says Benton, " Congress has been making these 
roads without reference to the Constitution, because uni- 
versally held that the Constitution did not extend to terri- 
tories. In my thirty-two years of congressional service 
I can well say, I never heard a question raised about the 
right of Congress to make in the territories the local im- 
provements which it pleased. I have seen members of all 
political schools constantly voting for such objects — the 
strict constructionist generally inquiring if the road was 
limited to the territory, and voting for the bill if it was." " 

The theory was that no state sovereignty would thus be 
infringed upon. Territories are the " property of Con- 
gress, subject only to the conditions upon which they 
were ceded by the states or foreign nations, and Congress 
acted with them without reference to the Constitution of 
the United States," " but according to the Territorial ordi- 

" Benton, Debates of Congress, vol. i, p. 637 
" United States Statutes at Large. 
" Benton, Debates of Congress, vol. vii, p. 617. 
" Ibid. 



135] r/w Development of Highways. 17 

nance of July 13, 1787, which had been given them by 
Congress and which the latter could modify. 

Under Act of May i, 1802, the Secretary of the Treasury 
was empowered to have " viewed, marked and opened such 
roads within the territory northwest of the Ohio as, in 
his opinion, will best serve to promote the sale of the public 
lands in the future.'"' For this purpose six thousand dol- 
lars were appropriated from the moneys received from the 
sale of public lands. 

Now if it is good for the " National welfare," to provide 
roads within a territory why is it not also advantageous to 
construct roads leading from the states into the territories? 
Immigration would thus be encouraged, values of public 
lands enhanced, and close commercial relations would de- 
velop a strong feeling of national unity. The step was 
easily made; and on March 29, 1806, came the Act auth- 
orizing the opening of a road from Cumberland, in Mary- 
land, to the Ohio River in Ohio. For the opening of the 
road thirty thousand dollars were appropriated from the 
proceeds of public land sales. If the funds derived from 
the sale of public lands could thus be constitutionally ap- 
plied why not any other funds in the treasury? 

Tlius was driven the entering wedge. The precedent 
was established, and gradually the strict constructionists 
surrendered their position as sticklers for the Constitution 
and joined the pellmell rush, the game of grab. This, of 
course, developed at a much later period than the one with 
which we are now dealing; but we see that the idea was 
already in the public mind. 

By 1800 the Spanish government had at last (in 1795) 
acceded to the claims of the United States to all the terri- 
tory north of the thirty-first degree, Colonel EUicott had 
marked this southern boundary line (in 1798-9), the Span- 
ish garrisons had evacuated Fort St. Stephens'* and Fort 

" United States Statutes at Large. 
'"Established by the Spanish about 1786. 
2 



18 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [136 

Tombecbe"' (called by the Spanish Fort Confederation) and 
Congress (in 1798) had organized the Mississippi Territory. 
The white population of that part of the Mississippi Terri- 
tory which afterwards became Alabama were confined to 
the settlements around Tensaw (near Nannahubba Island), 
St. Stephens, and Tombecbee."' It consisted of those who 
had been stranded from the French colonies (who held 
the region till 1763), of those who remained from the 
Spanish colonies (who claimed and held these districts 
from 1783 to 1798) and of the few Americans who had 
filtered through the wilds from Georgia." To protect 
these isolated colonists from the surrounding Indians and 
from the intriguing Spaniards just below them, and to en- 
courage immigration into the territory the Federal Govern- 
ment soon proceeded to construct two roads, one leading 
into the Natchez settlement on the Mississippi River, and 
another leading into the settlement along the lower Ala- 
bama. On October 24, 1801, a treaty was made with the 
Chickasaw Indians (approved by the United States Senate 
May I, 1802) by which a "wagon road" was allowed 
through their lands from " The Mero District in the State 
of Tennessee " to the Natchez settlements. For this priv- 
ilege " The Commissioners of the United States give to the 
Mingco of the Chicasaws and the deputation of that nation 
goods to the value of seven hundred dollars." "* On the 

" Established by the French in 1735. Near the present Jones' 
Bluff, Sumter County. 

"The population of the whole county of Washington, then ex- 
tending from the Pearl to the Chattahoochee, was only 733 whites 
and 517 negroes. The population of what is now Mobile and Bald- 
win counties, then Spanish territory, was probably as large. 
Brewer's Alabama, p. 26. 

^ Bartram in 1777 speaks of meeting " A company of immigrants 
from Georgia; a man, his wife, a young woman, several young 
children and three stout young men, with about a dozen horses 
loaded with their property." He was informed that they were 
" to settle on the Alabama a few miles above the confluence of the 
Tombigbee." These were among the earliest immigrants to Ala- 
bama. Bartram's Travels, p. 441. 

" United States Statutes at Large, vol. vii, p. 65. 



137] Th-c Development of Highways. 19 

17th of the following December a treaty was likewise se- 
cured by the same commissioners granting the right to 
continue this road through the lands of the Choctaws. 
For this concession the Choctaws were paid " the value of 
two thousand dollars in goods and merchandise, nett cost 
of Philadelphia," " and " three sets of blacksmith's tools." 
Tliis road called the " Nashville to Natchez " road had 
been the line of an old Indian trail,^' crossing the Ten- 
nessee River at Muscle Shoals where the United States by 
treaty of January 10, 1786, had obtained a grant of land 
for a trading post." A treaty of November 14, 1805, 
granted the United States " the right to a horse path 
through the Creek Country from the Ocmulgee to the 
Mobile — and to clear out the same and lay logs over the 
creeks." Tlie Indians were to provide boats at the several 
rivers for conveyance of men and horses, and also houses 
of entertainment for the accommodation of travelers; for 
all these accommodations the prices should be regulated 
by " the present Agent, Colonel Hawkins,'* or by his suc- 
cessor in office." By act of April 21, 1806, appropriations 
were made for the opening of these two roads; six thous- 
and dollars for the one from Nashville to Natchez, and six 
thousand four hundred dollars for the one from frontier 
of Georgia on the route to New Orleans to the intersection 
with 31° of north latitude.^ Both were duly opened up 

" Ibid., p. 66. 

■' History of Tennessee, Phelan, pp. 171, 179, 277. 

" United States Statutes at Large, vol. vii, p. 24. 

^ Colonel Benjamin Hawkins was appointed by President JeflFer- 
son as agent to the Creeks. He established what became known 
as the " Old Agency " at the point where the trade route crossed 
the Flint river. Around this settlement grew up the town Fran- 
cisville, so called from Francis Bacon, who married the daughter 
of Colonel Hawkins, and who infused new life into the little set- 
tlement. After the completion of the railway from Columbus to 
Macon the business of Francisville was absorbed by other points, 
and the little town soon passed into oblivion. " Dead Towns of 
Georgia," in vol. iv of " Collections of Georgia Historical Society," 
p. 241. 

"United States Statutes at Large. 



20 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [138 

and the former long continued the post road into the Nat- 
chez district, while the latter became the great thorough- 
fare of early Alabama. 

Fort Stoddard was a post which had been built in 1799'" 
by the Federal Government as a port of entry just above 
Ellicott's line (31°) and this became the terminal point of 
the Georgia-Alabama Road. From Fort Stoddard (the 
site of the present Mt. Vernon) the road crossed Mim's 
Ferry.^' Nannahubba Island and Hollinger's Ferry, then 
following, in general, the ridge which divides the tribu- 
taries of the Alabama from those of the Gulf (thus prac- 
tically the line of the old trade route) to Columbus on the 
Chattahoochee. With these small appropriations the 
roads were merely blazed through the woods, though at 
once honored with the dignified title of " Federal Roads.'' 

For the extension and improvement of these roads ap- 
propriations were made, from time to time, as follows:" 

For the Nashville-Natchez route;" 

Act of April 21, 1806 $6,000 

Act of April 27, 1816 5.000 

Act of March 27, 1818 5.000 

Act of March 3, 1823 7,920 

For the Georgia- Alabama route; 

Act of April 21, 1806 6,400 

Act of Pebruary 17, 1809 5,000 ^' 

Act of April 27, 1816 5.000 " 

'" Pickett, vol. ii, p. 179. 

'' Established in 1797. Pickett, ii, p. 179; also Publications of 
Alabama Historical Society, vol. ii, p. 167. 

^" Statutes at Large. 

^ This road was of more importance to Mississippi. Its influence 
upon the settlement of the northwest portions of Alabama will, 
however, warrant the above summary. 

'* The President, empowered by an Act of March 3, 1807, had 
obtained permission from Spain to continue the road from Fort 
Stoddard to New Orleans. For this purpose the above appropria- 
tion was made. 

" The importance of a better road, affording better military con- 
nections with this section had been impressed on Congress by the 
recent events in the southwest during the closing days of the War 
of 1812. House Report 61, 13th Congress, 3rd session. 



139] The Development of Highivays. 21 

Act of March 27, 1818 $ 5,000 

Act of April 14. 1820 3.300 

Act of May 20, 1826 6.000 

Act of February 20, 1833 \ 

■' ^^ { 20,000 

Act of July 7, 1838 i,945-50 

Tlie Act of February 20, 1833, authorized the opening of 
a new post road through the Indian Country from Line 
Creek in Alabama to the Chattahoochee opposite Cohnn- 
bus. The three thousand dollars were to repair the old 
road (which had become well-nigh impassable, especially 
through the swampy lowlands during the winter season) 
for use till the new one could be put through. The Presi- 
dent was authorized to employ a superintendent, upon an 
annual salary of a thousand dollars, who should supervise 
the construction of this new road. " To close the accounts 
for laying out and construction of this ' Mail Route ' and 
to pay the ' balance due the contractor and workmen 
the appropriation of July 7, 1838, was made. The new 
road, called " The Upper Federal Road " was to the 
north of the old route, was on higher ground, and was 
generally used during the rainy season; the old road con- 
tinued in use during open weather. 

These amounts, together with three thousand dollars 
appropriated'^ " for the completion and improvement of the 
military road " from Pensacola by Blakely to Mobile, and' 
one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight dollars for mil- 
itary road from Pensacola to Fort Mitchell, opened in 
1824, sum up the federal aid to road building in Alabama. 

Lieutenant McLeary, in 1799, had opened a rough mil- 
itary road from Natchez to St. Stephens when he marched 
across to take charge of the latter place after the evacu- 
ation of the Spaniards." At an early date a road was cut 
from St. Stephens, crossing the Alabama at Claiborne, and 

" Act March 2, 1829. Statutes At Large. 

"Pickett, vol. xi, p. 179; Publications of Alabama Historical 
Society, vol. xi, p. 166. 



22 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [140 

joining the Federal road to the east. A horse path had 
been opened through the Chickasaw territory, intersecting 
the Nashville-Natchez road at Colbert's Ferry (Muscle 
Shoals);'* the road from Georgia had been extended from 
Fort Stoddard to Natchez." 

In 1805 was obtained the right to a road from " Tellico 
to Tombigbee " inasmuch as the " mail of the United 
States from Knoxille to New Orleans " had been " ordered 
to be carried through the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw 
countries." *° On this road the little village of Huntsville 
began in 1806. It was known as the " Knoxville Road '' 
and was of much importance in the settlement of the north- 
ern part of Alabama. Thus by 1810 the St. Stephens Dis- 
trict was fairly well connected with the older states by 
rough, pioneer roads and immigrants began to flock in 
from all quarters. The principal immigrant route, how- 
ever, was that from Georgia, through the Creek Country 
to Fort Stoddard. Along this route came settlers from 
Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia; some on horse-back, 
their effects on pack-saddles, and others used the rolling 
hogshead." 

An idea of the difficulties under which immigrants 
labored along these pioneer roads may be gathered from 
descriptions in books of early travel. In 1810 Peggy Dow 
gives us a description of her trip from the Natchez Coun- 
try" into Georgia. As she passed the last house of Natchez 
and entered the " vast wilderness " she tells us " my 
heart trembled at the thought of sleeping out in this place 
with no companion but my husband." Coming to a place 



** Pickett, vol. xi, p. 234. 

•• By Act of the Legislature of the Mississippi Territory. Ham- 
ilton: Colonial Mobile. 348. 

" Treaty with Cherokees, October 27, 1805. 

" Goods were packed in a hogshead, trunnions, or the equivalent, 
put in the ends, and to them were attached shafts by which an ox 
or horse would draw it along. P. J. Hamilton: Publication of the 
Alabama Historical Society, vol. xi, p. 50. 

" Dow's Life and Works, pp. 221-223. 



141] The Development of Highways. 23 

where were found water and plenty of cane for the horses 
they struck camp for the night, built a fire, ate a supper of 
coffee and hard biscuit, then rested for the night on their 
blankets, " the wide extended concave of Heaven be- 
spangled with stars" affording a majestic scene; while 
the " lonely desert uninhabited by any creature but wild 
beasts and savages " made her feel very much alarmed. 
Proceeding the next day forty miles they crossed the Pearl 
in a ferry-boat and slept " in a house, such as it was, that 
belonged to a half-breed." Passing by " Hell Hole, a 
dreadful slough," they crossed a creek (probably Leaf 
River) and becoming involved by the many little divisions 
of the road secured the services of an Indian guide and late 
at night reached the home of one Noles on the Chickasowha 
River about " thirty miles from the settlement on the 
Tombigbee." The next day, proceeding " through some 
delightful country " they reached " the first house that was 
inhabited by white people." The Tombigbee was crossed 
by ferry-boat at St. Stephens, the Alabama was crossed at 
a " ferry" kept by a man who was a mixture," where they 
stayed that night, and the next day they " struck the road 
that had been cut out by the order of the President." 

" Tliis made it more pleasant for traveling " the author 
continues, " and then we frequently met people removing 
from the states to the Tombigbee and other parts of the 
Mississippi Territory." Following as guide the " fresh 
marked trees " they crossed Murder Creek, the Chatta- 
hoochee " and reached Colonel Hawkins ' " where the 
writer " felt grateful to the God of all grace for his tender 
care over us while in this dreary part of the land where 
our ears had been saluted by the hideous yells of the wolf, 
and had been surrounded by the savages more wild and 
fierce than they." 

In 1818 Rev. John Owen moved with his family and 
effects, by wagon, from near Norfolk in Virginia to Tus- 

"At Fort Claiborne. 



24 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [143 

caloosa, Alabama. Passing through Beauford's Gap of 
the Alleghanies, down the Holston Valley, by Knoxville, 
tHence to the Tennessee River, crossing possibly at Nick- 
ajack, by Jones' Valley (near Birmingham of our day) he 
reached his destination after " nine weeks traveling, over 
broken roads, and exposed to every danger." He thought 
the roads in old Virginia were bad, but even his experience 
tITere had not prepared him for the shocks and jostles fo 
be endured along the " infernal roads " of this new terri- 
tory." 

The Federal Road from Georgia to Alabama soon be- 
came the continuation of the stage line which connected 
Washington with the Southern States. In 1820 Adam 
Hodgson, an Englishman, traveled along this line from 
Washington to Mobile and in his " Letters from North 
America " (London, 1824) gives us a good idea of those 
days of westward movement. He left Washirtgton on 
January 20th, 1820, in the " Mail stage, a mere covered 
wagon, open at the front " to which were attached four 
horses. Passing through Richmond and Petersburg (Vir- 
ginia), Raleigh, Fayetteville and Lumberton (North Caro- 
lina), Georgetown and Charleston (South Carolina), he 
reached Savannah, Georgia, the stage having made an av- 
erage on the trip of three and three quarter miles per hour. 

" This," he complains, " is wretchedly poor traveling 
in the only public conveyance between Washington and 
the Southern States, yet this vehicle is dignified by the 
title of the ' United States Mail,' although it is only an 
open wagon and four, with curtains which unfurl; and the 
mail bags lie lumbering about your feet, among the trunks 
and packages which the passengers smuggle into the 
carriage " to obviate the danger of their falling of¥ or being 
stolen, all baggage usually being merely " thrown on be- 

** The Journal of Rev. John Owen, published by Thos. M. Owen 
in the " Publications of the Southern History Association," April, 
1897, vol. i, p. 89. Quoted in " Publications of the Alabama 
Historical Society," vol. xi, p. 53. 



143] Tlw Developme^it of Highways. 25 

hind." From Savannah Hodgson passed up the river by 
boat to Augusta and from here proceeded to Mobile on 
horseback. Milledgeville, then the Capital of Georgia, Fort 
Hawkins on the Ocmulgee, the Indian Agency on the 
Flint, Coseta on the Chattahoochee (modern Columbus), 
Fort Bainbridge, Caleebe and Cubahatchee swamps, Line 
Creek, Point Comfort, Pine Barren Springs, Fort Dale, 
Murder Creek, Burnt Corn, and Blakely are all succes- 
sively mentioned, some of which may be seen on the map 
of Alabama to-day, and enable us to trace the route of 
the old Federal road along which the early settlers moved 
from Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas into the Gulf 
States. 

" The road, though tolerable for horses," he thought 
would be regarded in England as utterly impassable for 
wheels. Lonely stretches undotted for forty or fifty miles 
by a single house, often came into the experience of our 
traveler, the occasional inns were rude in structure, fur- 
nished in no very pretentious manner. As an example of the 
hotel facilities to be enjoyed, Hodgson describes the inn at 
Coweta as having only one bed room " with three beds such 
as they were," a log building, with clay floor and no win- 
dows. The proprietor of the inn, an adventurer from Phil- 
adelphia, arranged his prices so as to carry the conviction 
that he was not in the business merely for amusement but 
had come to exploit the necessities of the traveler. 

To avoid wounding the feelings of the kind hearted hosts 
and hostesses he would sleep in these rather crowded and 
camp-like apartments when often he really envied his ser- 
vant who had been compelled to seek his night's repose in 
the hay loft." 

In January, 1835, Featherstonhaugh, another English 
tourist, passed along the same route from Montgomery, 
Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia. At Montgomery he 
learned that the mail stages, owing to bad roads, were 

*° A. Hodgson: Letters from North America. London (1824). 



26 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [144 

unable to run and mails were, therefore, sent on horse- 
back. Unwilling to wait until late in the spring to secure 
passage, " after a good deal of chafifering " he finally 
agreed to give sixty-five dollars, as hire, for a " miserable 
vehickle and a pair of wretched horses " to conduct him to 
Columbus, Georgia, a distance of ninety miles. The road 
was found " quite answering to the description " winch 
had been given, " being so frightfully cut up as to render 
it much more preferable to walk wherever the road was 
sufficiently dry. The black fellow who drove seemed to 
take it quite philosophically, observing nothing unusual 
in the kind of rocking and bouncing motion " and seemed 
to think the traveler not quite in his senses for preferring 
to walk when he had paid so much for riding. 

By the close of the first day's travel he was reconciled 
to the liveryman's high charge of four shillings per mile, 
for they were only able to make fourteen miles during 
the day and he was persuaded that " such a performance 
could not be gotten up for less money in any part of the 
world." Almost unbroken lines of immigrants were daily 
passed, bringing with them their negro slaves. The women 
and children were drawn slowly along in heavy wagons 
while the hardy and dusky men, on foot, trudged wearily 
over the heavy road to their new and more southern 
homes. A thousand slaves moving thus, on foot, would be 
passed in a single day." The distance to Columbus, ninety 
miles, was made only after four days of tedious travel. 
The greater portion of the road thus traversed lay within 
the lands yet occupied by the Creek Indians and over which 
the state of Alabama, therefore, had no jurisdiction; from 
the description given of this road we see that the appro- 
priations from the Federal Government in 1833 and 1838 
were made none too soon. 

*• Featherstonhaugh: The Slave States. 



145] Tli-e Development of Highz^'ays. 27 

Stage and Express Lines. 

From 1832 to 1838 the Indian tribes of Alabama were 
being pushed to their more western homes and by 1839 the 
last of these aboriginal tribes had passed beyond the Mis- 
sissippi." We have already seen the tides of immigration 
flowing in, anticipating the throwing open of these vacated 
lands. The population had now become sufficiently dense, 
and the travel and traffic sufificiently great, to justify the 
conduct of three separate lines of stages along the old 
Federal road from Columbus to Montgomery, the '* Mail 
Line," the " Telegraph Line " and the " People's Line." " 

The coaches, usually built open for summer use, were, 
during the winter, closed in with painted canvas, or oil 
cloth, " but so loosely as to let in the cold air in every 
part," and were made as heavy and strong as the union 
of wood and iron could make them. These coaches 
usually contained three seats, the middle often provided 
with a broad leather strap to lean back upon and 
which was generally reserved for the ladies. To this ve- 
hicle two, four, or on the worst roads six horses would be 
attached. The driver and team were changed at the suc- 
cessive stages recurring at distances of from twelve to fif- 
teen miles. The passengers, at the call of the driver, 
would sway their bodies to right or left, and even lean far 
out of the windows as the necessity arose, to keep in bal- 
ance the coach as it was about to be upset. Delays at the 
small post offices and occasional " break-downs " kept the 
speed down to about four or five miles an hour. To 
the complaints of the passengers the patient driver 
would often reply that even the locomotive (which was 
already beginning to threaten his future) could do no 
better if put on these swamps and that the most that can 
be said is " that each kind of vehicle runs fastest on its own 
line of road." For these comforts and conveniences the 

" Brewer: Alabama, pp. 50-54. 
"Buckingham: Slave States. 



28 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [146 

passengers usually paid a dollar for eight or ten miles with 
no extra charge for delays, bumps, and occasional injuries. 
The fare often varied, however, according to the sharpness 
of rivalry between competing lines. For example, while 
the " Mail Line " was the only one in operation the charge 
from Macon to Columbus, Georgia, a distance of ninety 
miles, was twenty dollars. A second line reduced it to 
ten dollars. A third line followed and reduced it to five 
dollars. The two former lines then reduced their rates 
to one dollar. The latest company then carried their 
passengers for nothing, while the hotels furnished them 
with dinner and champagne at the expense of the coach 
proprietors. The three lines soon tired of this " cut 
throat " rate, and forming a " combine " adopted a uni- 
form schedule of ten dollars per ninety miles." 

Along this old Federal Road was established the " Ex- 
press Mail," a device for rapid transmission of news and of 
market reports of suflficient importance to warrant the 
extra expense in their conveyance between the different 
towns and cities. The terminal points of this line were 
New York and New Orleans. Between these two points 
five hundred horses and two hundred boys, as riders, 
were employed. Each boy rode a distance of twelve miles 
out and twelve miles back. By thus placing a relay of 
horses at each of these successive intervals an average 
speed was maintained of about fourteen miles per hour.^" 

Both the expensive " Express Mail " and the stage-coach 
system which had spread its network of lines throughout 
the state were soon destined to succumb to the railroad, 
which had already made its appearance in Alabama." 

*• Buckingham: Slave States, 1839. 
"Buckingham: Slave States. 

" The first railway laid in Alabama was completed in 1833. 
Brewer's Alabama, p. 98. 



147] The Development of niglnvays. 29 

Road System of Alabama. 

By act of Congress approved May lo, 1798, the land 
between the Chattahoochee and the Mississippi rivers and 
lying between 31° and 32° 28' north latitude was created 
into the Mississippi Territory. At an early date°^ the ter- 
ritorial legislature enacted a road law. This system was 
inherited by the territory, and later by the state, of Ala- 
bama, and remains in vogue to-day, practically without 
change.'^ 

The Courts of County Commissioners have original 
jurisdiction over the establishment, discontinuance, change, 
and repair of roads, bridges, causeways and ferries within 
the county. Four Commissioners, elected by the quali- 
fied voters of the county every four years, with the Probate 
Judge constitute the court. This court selects apportion- 
ers for each election precinct and these apportioners divide 
the roads within their precincts into sections designating 
a certain number of hands and appointing an overseer for 
each section. Not more than ten days labor may be re- 
quired annually of every able-bodied man between the ages 
of eighteen and forty-five, for keeping roads in repair, 
and in some counties special acts allow this service to be 
commuted in money. It is hardly necessary to state that 
this system has not produced any earnestness of purpose 
for the improvement of highways, and the economy of 
good roads has been unappreciated and certainly has never 
been realized in Alabama. 

During the early years of the state many companies 
were incorporated for the purpose of constructing turn- 
pike roads. They were chartered for a limited number of 
years (often twenty), toll-gates were authorized at mter- 
vals of five miles, and the charges were fixed by the act 
of incorporation. An estimate of tolls charged may be 



"Act of March i, 1805. Turner's Digest of the laws of the 
Mississippi Territory. 
"Acts of Alabama Territory, 1818. Code Alabama, 1896. 



30 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [148 

gathered from an act of January 13, 1826, authorizing 
W. H. Ragsdale and his associates to build a turnpike road 
in FrankHn County, 

Rates were stipulated as follows : " 

Each loaded wagon and team $1.00 

Each empty wagon and team 75 

Each cart, wagon and team 50 

Each pleasure four-wheel carriage i.oo 

Each pleasure two-wheel carriage 50 

Man and horse I2j4 

For each led horse o6j4 

Cattle per head 04 

Goats, sheep and hogs per head 01 

" The Blakely and Greenville Turnpike Company " incor- 
porated in 1824, was authorized to charge for every five 
miles/" 

For each pleasure four-wheel carriage $ -50 

Each horse or ox wagon 25 

Man and horse 12}4 

Loose horses, cattle, hogs and sheep per head 02 

By terms of this charter the Legislature was empowered 
at any time it might see fit, to examine the books of the 
company; the tolls received were never to exceed twenty- 
five per cent (annually) on the capital actually invested, 
nor should they fall below twelve and a half per cent of the 
same. The County Courts were to supervise the repairs 
of the roads, no tolls were to be allowed when the roads 
were out of repair, and the tolls should be raised or lowered 
as found necessary to keep the profits within the stated 
limits. The mails, express messengers, troops of State 
and Federal governments, all footmen, persons going to 
and from public worship, laborers going to and from 
their fields were usually exempted by the charters from 
all tolls. 

From 1847 to 1853 may be called the era of plank-road 

" Acts of Legislature, 1825-26. 
" Acts of Legislature, 1824. 



149] Tlw Development of Highways. 31 

building in Alabama. Twenty-four companies, for ex- 
ample, were incorporated by the Legislature during the 
session 1849-50 for the purpose of constructing plank- 
roads."' Some of these projected plans were put into ex- 
ecution," but the same session of the Legislature incorpor- 
ated several new railroad companies thus indicating that 
the active railroad spirit was already present before which 
the impulse to plank-road building was soon to decline, in 
fact to disappear. 

The people of Alabama during the thirties and forties, 
manifested a spirit of nervousness, feeling that they were 
being outstripped by the sister states, many of whom were 
lending substantial aid to works of internal improvement. 
Pressure was, therefore, repeatedly brought to bear upon 
Legislature and Governors to induce them to embark in 
a policy of state aid to river and canal improvements, turn- 
pike and plank-road building. 

Tliat this enthusiastic spirit was held in check is due 
largely to the fact that the state was in great financial 
straights, resulting from the failure of the Bank of Ala- 
bama. An approximate loss of seven million dollars was 
entailed upon the state by the collapse of this institution, 
all of the debts of the Bank having been assumed by the 
state." In Alabama during the decade 1845-55 ^ ^^S^^ ^^te 
of taxation was necessary to meet the interest on the pub- 
lic debt. A depleted State Treasury, a high tax rate and 
the permanent impression that the state, judged either as 
to efficiency or integrity, was not the best manager and 
promoter of financial enterprises, — all served as influences 



" Acts of the Legislature, 1849-50. 

°* Governor Collier's Message, November, 1851. 

""Alabama's State Bank: Article by J. H. Fitts in Bankers' Lawf 
Journal for June, 1895. Brewer: Alabama, p. 53. Messages of 
Governors, December 3, 1838, and December 16, 1845. J. L. M. 
Curry: Tract on " Hon. Francis M. Lyon as Commissioner and 
Trustee of Alabama." Garrett's Reminiscences, pp. 43, 63, 212, 217, 
255, 258, 267, 275, 278, 670. 



32 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [150 

to discourage the policy of public aid throughout the entire 
period ending with the Civil War. 

State aid to internal improvements was thus regarded 
as infeasible in Alabama during the very period when other 
states were most active in such work. Only small appro- 
priations and loans were made to plank-road companies 
from the " two and three per cent funds " and these will 
be discussed at a later point. 

In recent years several counties of Alabama have been 
empowered by the Legislature to issue bonds for the im- 
provement of roads, and powers of taxation granted by 
which these bonds are to be retired. In other counties 
power has been granted of assessing a road-tax, which 
must be paid out of the general levy. The counties of 
Montgomery, Jefferson, Madison, Colbert, and Lauderdale 
many miles of macadam road have thus been built and the 
manifest advantages bid fair to increase the spirit and fur- 
ther the work of improvement. 



CHAPTER II 
RIVER AND HARBOR IMPROVEMENT 

State Aid 

Alabama ranks among the first states of the Union in 
the number, extent, and value of her magnificent water 
lines. Every section, and nearly every county, of the state 
is watered, and afforded commercial facilities by some one 
or more of its navigable rivers. Professor Tuomey, the 
first State Geologist of Alabama, said in one of his reports: 
" There is scarcely an extensive and really valuable agri- 
cultural tract in the State that has not its navigable stream." 
This region is traversed by two great systems of waterways, 
(i) the Tennessee with its tributaries, connecting North 
Alabama with the Mississippi; and (2) that group of rivers 
which drain much the largest part of Alabama together 
with considerable portions of Georgia and Mississippi also, 
and find a common outlet into the Gulf of Mexico through 
the waters of the Mobile Bay. 

Tliis latter system, converging at Mobile, spreading out, 
fan-shaped over magnificent timber regions, over fertile 
agricultural districts, and reaching into the center of the 
inexhaustible coal and iron deposits of North Alabama, 
aflfords a field for improvement the merits of which are 
probably unsurpassed by any water system within the 
United States. The improvements which have been made 
upon these waters have been due almost exclusively to 
the Federal Government, the state of Alabama having 
done practically nothing along this line. Rivalries l^e- 
tween the different sections of the state caused hitches in 
legislation which for a long time prevented application 
even of the three and two per cent funds to the purpose 
3 



34 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [152 

for which they were set apart by Congress. In the early 
days of settlement no adequate system of revenue existed, 
the citizens were heavily burdened to meet the maturing 
payments for public lands which they had purchased. The 
population, too, was more or less shifting, and the spirit 
of internal improvements, so prominent in other states, 
was not so enthusiastically felt in Alabama. The impor- 
tance of improving the rivers was realized, no doubt, but 
the movement was held in check by the drain on the cur- 
rency for public lands and later by the financial convulsions 
and heavy taxation resulting from the disastrous banking 
scheme in which the state so early embarked. The Con- 
stitution under which the state was adm.itted to the Union 
provided for obtaining " accurate knowledge of such 
objects as may be proper for improvement and for making 
a systematic and economical application of means appro- 
priated to them." ^ Governor Bibb, in his message of Oc- 
tober 26, 1819/ recommended " the appointment of a 
skilled engineer, whose duties it shall be to examine the 
rivers within our Hmits with reference to the expediency 
and expense of improving navigation of each, and also the 
nearest and most eligible approach which can be made 
between the waters of the Tennessee and Mobile rivers." 
The Legislature, accordingly authorized the examina- 
tion, under the supervision of the executive, of some of the 
most conspicuous points of improvement. A competent 
engineer was employed and some examinations were made 
but no improvements materialized. In 1821, Governor 
Pickens recommended the establishment of a permanent 
board of internal improvements, and suggested that such a 
board could act without friction from sectional rivalry and 
would be free from " hauling " influences. He again em- 
phasized the necessity of a canal by which the Tennessee 
and the Alabama rivers were to be connected.' This canal 

' Constitution of 1819, Article vi, Section 21. 

' House Journal, 1819-20. 

' Message of Governor Pickens: House Journal, Nov. 9, 1821. 



153] River and Harbor Improvement. 35 

project was a plan long cherished by the people of Alabama 
as a means of more closely uniting the northern and 
southern sections of the state. The mountain barriers 
which separated the Tennessee Valley region from the 
more southern portions of the state prevented that full 
unity of interest and harmony in feeling which are so 
essential to the life of a government, and in the formation 
of which close commercial relations are so potent. Com- 
mercially, North Alabama was more closely connected with 
Louisiana than with South Alabama. Their products were 
shipped down the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi rivers 
to New Orleans a distance of 1500 miles, and from the 
latter point the greater portion of their supplies was pur- 
chased. On account of the shoals in the Tennessee River 
even this means of transportation was blocked for a 
great part of the year, and markets had to be sought at 
Savannah, Augusta or Charleston. The approximate dis- 
tance from the Tennessee Valley section to these three 
points was six hundred miles. From fifty to one hundred 
and fifty miles of this route had to be covered by wag- 
ons for at least one-half of the year." This inconven- 
ient and expensive method of transportation for many 
years proved a heavy incubus to the industrial develop- 
ment of the North-Alabama section. Emphasizing the 
importance of this canal scheme, Governor Gayle, in 
his message of 1834. stated that such a canal, uniting the 
Tennessee and the Alabama systems would carry to Mobile 
annually 150,000 bales of cotton "which go now to other 
states by dangerous and expensive routes." Not only was 
Mobile, the emporium of the state, being deprived of that 
share of the state's traffic to which she was actually en- 
titled, but heavy losses were being sustained also by the 
citizens of North Alabama on account of the lack of trans- 
portation facilities. For example in 1833 cotton was worth 

* Speech of Hon. R. W. Cobb in House of Representatives, Cong. 
Globe, vol. xxiii, Appendix, p. 157. 



36 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [154 

in New Orleans and Mobile fifteen cents per pound, but 
before the high water season had come, thus admitting of 
the navigation of the Tennessee River through the shoal 
portions, cotton had fallen to ten cents per pound. Before 
the farmers of this region could get an outlet their cotton 
had seen a decline of five cents per pound. During this 
year alone it is estimated that the loss thus entailed upon 
the Tennessee Valley counties was not less than $2,265,- 
000.' Not only was it difficult to find an outlet for cotton, 
but markets for provisions and general supplies were often 
inaccessible. These facts created the necessity for self 
sustaining farms, tended to prevent exclusive cotton cul- 
ture in North Alabama, resulted in a more diversified sys- 
tem of crops demanding smaller holdings of land and a 
smaller number of slaves than were found in the more 
southern portions of the state. As the result of these con- 
ditions the two sections were somewhat divided in senti- 
ments respecting slavery. This lack of harmony of inter- 
est and feeling continued till the beginning of the Civil 
\\'ar, and came near rending the state asunder on the ques- 
tion of secession. For quite awhile the Tennessee Valley 
counties were projecting the formation of another state, 
" Nickajack," which should remain with the Union. The 
fate of Virginia, however, was averted by the rapidity of 
invasion which caused the two sections to present a united 
front. 

That " geographical and sectional names might be anni- 
hilated " that the state might become really " one people," 
" identified in interests, assimilated in character and har- 
monized in feelings" " was then, one of the strong reasons 
which prompted the efforts to connect North and South 
Alabama by some line of transportation. There were pro- 
jected two plans by which this might be accomplished. 
Both involved the cutting of a canal between the two rivers. 



' Message of Governor Gayle, November 18, 1834. 
• Message of Governor Clay, 1835. 



165] River and Harbor Improvement. 37 

One of these, known as the " Tennessee and Tombigbee 
Canal," was to run from Fort Deposit on the Tennessee 
River to Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior River.' Owing 
to the length of this proposed route and the expense which 
would be involved the feasibility of this plan was more 
visionary than real. Another and doubtless more feasible 
route for a canal to unite the two river systems was the 
" Hiwassee and Coosa Canal," and was to extend from a 
point on the Okou, a navigable branch of the Hiwassee, 
to a point on the Conesaugo, a navigable branch of the 
Coosa, near the Georgia and Tennessee line, where these 
waters approach each other to within about twelve miles.* 
At a meeting held in Cahaba, Alabama, on May 20, 1823, 
this project was recommended as a means of laying open 
a passage for boats from the headwaters of the Tennessee 
River, in Virginia, through the Coosa and Alabama Rivers, 
to Mobile and the Gulf of Mexico. It was thought that 
by such a canal the trade from the eastern part of Tennes- 
see, the western portions of Virginia and North Carolina 
and from the northwestern sections of Georgia that enor- 
mous district drained by the tributaries of the Tennessee 
and the Coosa rivers would all be drawn to Mobile.' The 
Governor of Alabama in the following November recom- 
mended to the Legislature that a corporation be encour- 
aged to carry out the proposed plan, showing that finan- 
cial conditions would not authorize the state to embark in 
any pronounced work of improvement at that time. The 
Legislature passed an act "' incorporating the " Coosa 
Navigation Company," naming nine towns particularly, 
and appointing for each town three superintendents who 
should open books for subscription on the first Monday in 
June, 1824. The plan met the approval of the Federal 

^ A connected view of the whole Internal Navigation of the 
United States (1830), p. ^yj. 
' Internal Navigation of the United States (1830), p. 389. 
'Message of Governor S. B. Moore, November, 1831. 
" Approved December 30, 1823. 



38 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [156 

Government, but it seems that the people were not so en- 
thusiastic over the plan as were the authorities; at any 
rate the capital was not raised and no canal resulted. 

A later act incorporating the " Alabama and Tennessee 
Canal Company " " met with the same fate. Both com- 
panies were still-born. In 1828 this project was examined 
under the auspices of the United States Government, a 
route was levelled and surveyed for the proposed com- 
munication which should pass through the most favorable 
depression of the ridge which divided the two tributary 
valleys, and which should have as terminal points Hilte- 
brand's boat-yard on the Okou and McNair's boat-yard 
on the Conesaugo, a length of twelve miles. The plan 
was pronounced feasible, but promised to be very expen- 
sive on account of the requisite deep cutting at the sum- 
mit level, together with other local diflficulties which would 
have to be overcome." This plan, when completed, was 
to form but a part of that greater system known as the 
" Southern Route " which was to connect the whole of the 
Tennessee Valley with the Atlantic seaboard. This canal, 
connecting the Tennessee and the Coosa, together with 
another canal joining the Etowah with the Ocmulgee 
would complete the line by which, after improvements of 
various river channels, it was hoped to obtain continuous 
navigation during at least eight months of the year from 
the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean. The Ohio, 
Tennessee, the Etowah, the Ocmulgee and Altamaha, to- 
gether with the canals which supplied the missing links 
were to constitute this Southern system of navigation, a 
plan more beautiful in theory than easy in practice, and 
destined to pass into oblivion as a dead scheme before the 
absorbing interest which was soon to be awakened in 
railroad building." 

"Approved January 11, 1827. 

" Internal Navigation of the United States, p. 391. 
" Internal Navigation of the United States (Edition 1830), pp. 
390-92; Report of Major Mahan, Corps of Engineers, 1894. 



157] River and Harbor Improz'cnioit. 39 

The Tennessee-Coosa Canal, however, is still periodic- 
ally mentioned and discussed as a future possibility. 
Major McFarland, reporting to the chief of engineers in 
1872, asserted the feasibility of a canal from Gadsden, on 
the Coosa, to Guntersville, on the Tennessee, a distance 
of thirty-five miles. He estimated that it would require 
$11,570,607 to execute the project. This plan, together 
with the improvement of the Coosa, would empty into the 
Bay of Mobile by an easy and cheap water route, the agri- 
cultural and mineral wealth of immense stretches of coun- 
try now shut out from the sea except by costly railroad 
transit or by the three thousand miles of water route 
through the Tennessee and Mississippi. It would open to 
its natural and nearest seaport one-fifth of the state of 
Alabama, a large section of North Georgia and the whole 
sweep of the Upper Tennessee with its score of important 
tributaries." Toward this important object the state of 
Alabama has contributed nothing and the Federal Govern- 
ment has never been induced to make appropriations for 
its execution. The Legislature, by Act of January 15, 
1830, organized a body known as the " President and 
Directors of the Board of Internal Improvements." '' 
This Board was to consist of six commissioners, to be 
elected biennially by a joint vote of the two houses of the 
Legislature. To avoid discriminations as to sections the 
act stipulated that these commissioners should be chosen 
one from the section below the junction of the Tombigbee 
and Alabama rivers; one from section below junction of 
Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers; one from the section below 
junction of Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers; one 
from the section above the junction of the two last named 
rivers; one from section between the Coosa and Cahaba 
rivers; one from the Tennessee Valley section. 

The Governor was made ex-officio president of the 

" Report of Captain Price to Chief of Engineers July, 1890. 
" Acts of Alabama, 1829-30. 



40 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [158 

Board. The members of the Board were to receive the 
same per diem and mileage as were paid to members of 
the Legislature. In them was vested the contracting for, 
and superintendence over, such works of internal improve- 
ment as might be directed by the Legislature. A report 
of progress and expenditures, together with recommenda- 
tions for further work, should be made annually to the 
same authority. It was declared by the act that all 
expenditures should be paid from the " three per cent 
fund," and that this fund should be held by the State Bank 
subject to the drafts of the " President and Directors " of 
the Board. This act, bearing upon its face the impres- 
sion that it would result in some positive efforts toward 
improved navigation, accomplished no material results, 
the scheme passed off as vapor, and the act was repealed 
by the Legislature on January 21, 1832. In 1839 the Gov- 
ernor in his message to the Legislature said of the state's 
policy toward internal improvements: " If it should be 
said that we are behind other states in this respect, it may 
be replied that if we are destitute of those ready and agree- 
able means of communication which abound and greatly 
facilitate traveling and transportation in some of the 
states, we are at least free from the weight of those mon- 
umental debts that have been contracted to carry on their 
works of internal improvement." He expressed a strong 
" preference for the opening and improving the naviga- 
tion of rivers over every other description of internal im- 
provement," and still adhered to the old " determination 
of effecting some permanent connection between the 
waters of the ]\Iobile Bay and the Tennessee River," add- 
ing, however, that " circumstances seem to forbid our en- 
gaging in it at present."" At the beginning of the ses- 
sion of 1840-41 a committee was appointed on inland navi- 
gation, and a resolution was adopted instructing the 
committee to " inquire into the propriety and expediency 

" Message of Governor Bagby, December, 1839. 



159] River and Harbor Improvement. 41 

of appropriating the whole of the three per cent fund to 
the completion of the Selma and Tennessee Railroad; or 
of some other mode of appropriating said fund so as more 
closely to indentify the Northern and Southern parts of 
our state." After some deliberation the committee re- 
ported back that it was inexpedient to legislate on the 
subject. The House refused to concur and the resolution 
was recommitted. On January 5, 1841, the committee 
made their report in which were discussed, pro and con, 
the various suggested methods or projects by which North 
and South Alabama should be connected." For the ac- 
complishment of this end the committee pronounced a 
macadamized road as infeasible. For such a road the 
proper rock is not obtainable, and, even if constructed, 
" would not divert the commerce of the North from its 
now accustomed channel." The most practicable method, 
the committee declare, would be to connect the Tennessee 
with the Coosa by a railroad, of not more than twelve 
miles in length, to extend from the Hiwassee to the Con- 
esauga Creek. Owing to the embarrassed condition of 
the state's finance they " repeat the expression that it is 
now inexpedient to legislate on the subjects," and ask to 
be discharged. This report shows that from the three 
per cent fund had been expended the following amounts: 

December 19, 1837, for improving the Coosa $30,000 

December 19, 1837, for improving the Tombigbee 25,000 

February i, 1839, for improving the Coosa 30,000 

February i, 1839, for improving the Paint Rock 10,000 

February 2, 1839, for improving the Choctawhatchee 10,000 

February 2, 1839, for improving the Elk 10,000 

February 7, 1839, for improving the Black Warrior 20,000 

Total $135,000 

These amounts were, by far, too small for the accom- 
plishment of the purposes to which they were appropri- 
ated, and no permanent improvements resulted. The 
"three per cent fund," including interest which has ac- 

'' House Journal, 1840-41. 



42 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [160 

crtied while invested in the State Bank, then amounted to 
$545737-53- Deducting from this the above $135,000 
leaves an unexpended balance of $410,737.53. The state 
being involved, no further appropriations were made for 
improving navigation facilities, and at a later date the fund 
was expended as subsidies to railroad companies. 

Improvements by the Federal Government. 

For the purposes of improvement by the Federal Gov- 
ernment the rivers of Alabama fall into three divisions: 
(i) the Northern system (consisting of the Tennessee and 
its tributaries), which is now in charge of Captain King- 
man, Corps of Engineers, with headquarters at Chatta- 
nooga; (2) the rivers which drain the more eastern portion 
of the state, now in charge of Captain Flagler, Corps of 
Engineers, with headquarters at Montgomery: in this 
system are comprised the Alabama (with its tributaries, 
the Cahaba, the Coosa and the Tallapoosa), the Chatta- 
hoochee, the Choctawhatchee and the Conecuh; (3) the 
Mobile Bay, Harbor and River with the Tombigbee and 
Warrior: this system drains the western and north-central 
portions of the state and is now in charge of Major Ros- 
sell, Corps of Engineers, with headquarters at Mobile. 

In discussing the efforts which have been made to im- 
prove the navigation on these streams we will treat each 
separately, beginning with 

(i) The Tennessee. — This stream receives its water 
from Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi and Kentucky, seven different states. 
The total area drained by it is forty-four thousand square 
miles, an area almost equal to that of England. This 
river, with the navigable portion of its tributaries, gives 
a system of water transportation of thirteen hundred and 
eighty-two miles navigable by steamboats plus ten hun- 
dred and fifty-three miles navigable by rafts and flat- 



161] Riz'cr and Harbor Improvement. 43 

boats, making, in all, a system of internal water ways of 
twenty-four hundred and thirty-five miles." 

Less than five hundred and fifty miles of this extent 
have ever been surveyed and no project has been formed 
for the system as a whole, but the improvements have 
been limited to the main trunk with three or four of its 
tributaries. This river enters the state of Alabama in the 
extreme northeast corner, flows southwestwardly to Gun- 
tersville, a distance of seventy-four miles; thence north- 
westwardly to Waterloo, in the extreme northwest corner 
of the state, a distance of one hundred and thirty-three 
miles, from which point it forms a part of the boundary 
between Alabama and Mississippi before re-entering the 
state of Tennessee. The chief obstruction to the naviga- 
tion of this river is the barrier between Brown's Ferry and 
Florence and known as the Muscle Shoals. Here Elk 
River Shoals, Big Muscle Shoals, and Little Muscle Shoals 
present a series of obstructions extending, with interven- 
ing pools of deep water, a distance of thirty-eight and a 
half miles, and until recently prevented navigation during 
a great part of the year between hundreds of miles of navi- 
gable waters above and over two hundred and fifty miles 
of open river below. We have already noted " the incon- 
venience and losses which were entailed upon the North 
Alabama people by these obstructions. In the counties of 
Madison, Morgan, Limestone, Lawrence, Franklin, and 
Lauderdale thousands of acres of land had been relin- 
quished by purchasers of public lands who were unable to 
meet the maturing payments. By law approved May 23, 
1828, Congress granted '" to the state four hundred thous- 
and acres of these " relinquished lands," the proceeds to 
" be applied to the improvement of navigation of the 
Muscle Shoals and Colbert's Shoals in the Tennessee 



" Report of Captain Kingman, 1896. 
'• Page 63. 

^ In accord with a Memorial from the Legislature of Alabama 
(January 15, 1828) asking such a donation. 



44 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [163 

River and such other parts of said river within said state 
as the Legislature thereof may direct." "' If there were not 
found four hundred thousand acres of rehnquished land in 
the counties named above the deficiency was to be sup- 
plied from any unappropriated lands in Jackson County, 
Thus these lands lay in seven counties of the state. The 
act provided also that the improvements should be made 
according to the plan recommended by the United States 
engineers who should be appointed to survey and report 
a plan. The Legislature of the state created " " the 
Board of Tennessee Canal Commissioners," consisting of 
five men, in whom was vested the power to make con- 
tracts for the execution of plans recommended by the 
engineers. The proceeds from the lands aggregated $i,- 
400,000.^ In 183 1 work was begun under the auspices 
of this board, and a canal was cut around Big Muscle 
Shoals fourteen and a quarter miles long, sixty feet wide 
and six feet deep. By 1836 the canal had been completed, 
and was thrown open for navigation, but continued in use 
for about one year only. Too little attention had been 
given to its terminal approaches and boats could enter the 
canal only at certain stages of the water. Tlie following 
year the canal was closed for want of funds. Being thus 
abandoned the canal fell gradually into ruin till work 
was resumed by the Federal Government about forty 
years later. 

Since 1868 appropriations have been regularly made 
for the improvement of the Tennessee in each river and 
harbor act. The appropriations divide the river into two 
sections, Chattanooga being the dividing point. 

(i) That portion of the river above Chattanooga is used 
principally for rafting lumber and logs, though it is also 
plied by flat-boats and steamboats of light draft. In 1832 
the state of Tennessee undertook the improvement of 
certain points above Chattanooga; the work, however, 



United States Statutes at Large, vol. iv, p. 290. 
' By Act approved January 15, 1830. 
Memorial from Legislature to Congress, Decemlier 2T,, 1868. 



163] River and Harbor Improvement. 45 

did not prove of any lasting value. The plan adopted by 
the Federal Government has been to obtain a three-foot 
low water navigable channel between Chattanooga and 
the French Broad by excavating rock and gravel, by re- 
moving boulders, and by the construction of wing dams. 
For this purpose appropriations have been made between 
April ID, 1869, and March 3, 1899, aggregating $391,000." 
The expenditures have resulted in giving a lengthened 
season of navigation and improving the channel at many 
of the places of obstruction." 

(2) For the improvement of the Tennessee below Chat- 
tanooga the following appropriations have been made: 

March 2, 1827 $ 200.00 (survey) 

May 23, 1828 1,400,000.00 (400,000 acres land) 

August 30, 1852 50,000.00 

June 9, i860 1,350.00 

June 12, i860 1,406.94 

July 25, 1868 85,000.00 

April 10, 1869 5,095.00 

July II, 1870 80,000.00 

June 10, 1872 50,000.00 

March 3, 1873 100,000.00 

June 23, 1874 100,000.00 

March 3, 1875 360,000.00 

August 14, 1876 255,000.00 

June 18, 1878 300,000.00 

March 3, 1879 210,000.00 

June 14, 1880 300,000.00 

March 3, 1881 250,000.00 

August 2, 1882 250,000.00 

August 7, 1882 3,970.18 

July 5, 1884 350,000.00 

August 5, 1886 262,500.00 

August II, 1888 250,000.00 

Sept. 19, 1890 475,000.00 

March 17, 1891 3.91 (transfer settlement) 

July 13, 1892 500,000.00 

August 17, 1894 400,000.00 

June 3. 1896 50,000.00 

March 3, 1899 235,000.00 

Total $6,324,526.03 

"Reports of Engineers; and United States Statutes at Large. 
" Report of Captain Kingman, July 18, 1896, and Statutes at 
Large. 



46 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [164 

In 1867 an examination was made of this part of the 
river (from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Paducah, Ken- 
tucky). Upon this survey the present project was de- 
cided upon, though subject to subsequent modifications. 
It was determined that attention should first be directed 
to Muscle Shoals, as navigation here was effectually 
closed, and the river would be practically useless unless 
this barrier be overcome. Consequently the greater part 
of the above appropriations has been expended on this 
section of the river. 

From Chattanooga to Decatur, a distance of one hundred 
and forty-five miles, occur a number of reefs and bars 
which tend to obstruct navigation. The approved project 
for this section " is to remove obstructions so as to obtain 
a depth of at least three feet at low water " by blasting, 
dredging, and by removing boulders, snags and gravel. 
The work done in pursuance of this plan has rendered up- 
stream navigation easier, and the dangers of down-stream 
navigation have been materially remedied, though the dif- 
ficulties are not yet entirely overcome. 

From Decatur to Florence. — The object of the improve- 
ment on this section of the river is to obtain continuous 
navigation around the three sets of shoals which obstruct 
the greater part of the distance of forty-eight miles be- 
tween these two points. The approved project, based on 
the survey made in 1872 and modified in 1877, is : (i) to 
enlarge, rebuild and straighten the old canal around Big 
Muscle Shoals (built in 1831-36, and which had been aban- 
doned in 1837) so as to give a canal fourteen and a half 
miles long, with nine locks having a total lift ot eighty-five 
feet, the canal to be six feet deep and seventy to one hun- 
dred and twenty feet wide at the water surface. (2) To 
construct at Elk River Shoals a canal one and a halt miles 
long, with two locks with a total lift of about twenty feet. 
(3) To blast at Little Muscle Shoals a channel through 
the bed-rock of the river and to construct stone wing 
dams and retaining walls to contract the waterway; to 



165] River and Harbor Improz'cnicnt. 47 

construct a lateral canal fifteen thousand feet long with 
a guard lock at the head and a lock at the foot having a 
lift of twelve feet. Up to June 30, 1895, there had been 
expended on these works $3,191,726.50 in addition to the 
original land donation of 1828. Owing to the fact that 
appropriations have not been adequate for rapid and con- 
tinuous work, progress has been somewhat slow. How- 
ever, Big Muscle and Elk River Shoals have been rendered 
navigable at all seasons of the year, the channel at Little 
Muscle Shoals has been much improved and work is still 
in progress. 

From Florence to the foot of Bee Tree Shoals (30 miles). — 
The obstructions here found are the Bee Tree and Colbert 
Shoals which begin about twenty-two miles below Florence 
and extend a distance of eight miles with a total fall of 
twenty-five feet at low water, at which stage the available 
depth is about one and a half feet. To June 30, 1890, for 
surveys, excavations, removal of rock from the channel and 
construction of dams only $62,243.41 had been spent on 
this section of the river. In this year a new project was 
adopted which, as modified in 1891 and 1892, contemplates 
the construction of a canal 7.8 miles long, one hundred 
and fifty feet wide with a depth of seven feet. A guard 
lock is to protect the upper end of the canal and at the 
lower end a lock of twenty-five feet lift is to be con- 
structed. Under this project, to June 30, 1895, had been 
expended $149,735.42 and work is still in progress under 
an appropriation (made by Act of Congress March 3, 
1899) of $100,000 toward this item. 

From the foot of Bee Tree Shoals to Padncah, Kentucky. — 
Along this section of the river comparatively little has 
been expended owing to the attention attracted to the 
more serious obstructions above. To August 17, 1894, 
only $62,043.32 had been allowed (from the general ap- 
propriation) for the improvement on this section. To this 
add $200,000 appropriated by acts of August 17, 1894, and 
March 3, 1899, gives a total of $262,043.32 expended below 



48 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [166 

the foot of Bee Tree Shoals. Snagging, making surveys, 
and improving Livingston Point (which with two small 
islands below it forms the harbor of Paducah) constitute 
the work done here. This portion of the river, being 
below most of the large tributaries, afifords the best navi- 
gation of the whole stream, and three-fifths of the entire 
business of the river and its tributaries is done on this 
division. 

The river is not yet navigable for the entire year, but 
the success of the improvements already made warrant the 
assertion that the main trunk of the river can be rendered 
so, and the navigable season can be greatly lengthened 
on all the tributaries."' 

(2) The Chattahoochee. — This river rises in the ex- 
treme northern part of Georgia, flows southwestwardly 
until at West Point it strikes the boundary line between 
Alabama and Georgia; thence it flows nearly due south, 
forming the boundary line between these two states, and 
further on in its course between Georgia and Florida until 
it joins the Flint, forming thus the Apalachicola. The 
Chattahoochee does not become navigable till it reaches 
Columbus, about two hundred and twenty-five miles above 
its junction with the Flint. Between these two points the 
plan of improvement (adopted in 1873 and still in force) is 
to get and maintain a channel four feet deep and one hun- 
dred feet wide. For this purpose $377,000 have been ap- 
propriated and expended, beginning with the first appro- 
priation of $2000 (February 24, 1835) and including the 
last appropriation of $50,000 (March 3, 1899)." 

(3) The Tallapoosa. — Under an act of Congress ap- 
proved June 14, 1880, an examination and partial survey 
of this river was made which resulted in a project for im- 
provement designed to obtain a navigable channel from 

" Reports of Major Kingman in Annual Reports of the Chief of 
Engineers, War Department. 

" Reports of Major Mahan, July 13, 1896; and of Major Mahan 
and Captain Flagler, September 28, 1899. 



167] River and Harbor Imp^rovement. 49 

its junction with Coosa River to the foot of Tallassee 
Reefs, a distance of forty-eight miles. The work done 
consisted in the removal of logs and snags, deepening 
shoals and cutting overhanging timbers. For this pur- 
pose appropriations have been made aggregating $44,000 
between August 2, 1882, and September 19, 1890.°^ The 
Tallapoosa flows through rich cotton lands, largely culti- 
vated, with many thousands of acres of arable and well 
timbered uplands adjacent. The falls of Tallapoosa fur- 
nish magnificent water power which is partly utilized by 
cotton-mill industries. The river, however, is not sus- 
ceptible of permanent improvement, and Captain Price in 
his report of July 10, 1893, states that no commercial use 
is made of the improved channel. Pursuant to his recom- 
mendations no further appropriations have been made for 
this river and work has been therefore suspended."' 

(4) The Choctawhatchee. — ^The commerce of this 
stream is mainly cotton, saw-logs, timber and lumber. 
That part of the river considered for improvement is that 
from its mouth to Newton, Alabama, a length of 162 miles. 
The most of the commerce of this stream is done between 
Geneva, Alabama, and Caryville, Florida. Below the latter 
place the Choctawhatchee runs through a sparsely settled 
country where the business is almost exclusively that of 
cutting and rafting timber. 

The project for improvement as adopted in 1880, and 
amended in 1890, provides for the securing of a channel 
navigable in low water from the mouth of the river to 
Newton, Alabama. Appropriations for this river began 
as early as March 3, 1833. From that date other amounts 
have followed from time to time, making a total of $162,000 
up to, and including, the appropriation of ^larch 3, 1899.'" 



" Report of Captain Black for Fiscal Year, ending June 30, 1890. 
" Report of Captain Price, July 10, 1893. 
** By Act February 2, 1839. 
4 



50 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [168 

To this amount must be added the $10,000 appropriated 
by the State Legislature from the three per cent fund." 

(5) The Coosa. — This river is formed by the junction 
of the Oostenaula and the Etowah. The Etowah is not 
navigable. The Oostenaula and its tributary, the Coosa- 
wattee, are navigable the year round for light draft boats 
from Rome, Georgia, at the junction of the Oostenaula 
and Etowah, to Carter's Landing, Georgia, on the Coosa- 
wattee, a distance of 105 miles. There would be a con- 
tinuous water route of transportation from Carter's Land- 
ing, Georgia, to Mobile, Alabama, were it not for the 
shoals and rapids on the Coosa River distributed over a 
distance of 137 miles in Alabama between Greensport and 
Wetumpka. This reach, covering 776 miles, would thus 
include the Coosawattee, the Oostenaula, the Coosa, the 
Alabama and the Mobile rivers," Realizing the import- 
ance of this route to the commercial and industrial life of 
the state the Legislature of Alabama in 1823 passed an 
act looking forward to the improvement of Coosa River." 
The plan was, however, to be executed by private capital. 
The project was approved by Congress in 1824 and four 
years later Congress enacted that any surplus from the 
grant (400,000 acres of land) for the improvement of the 
Tennessee River should be applied to the improvement 
of the Coosa, Cahaba and Black rivers. No private capi- 
tal was subscribed to the Coosa Navigation Company, "nor 
was there any surplus from the Tennessee land grant," 
so the whole scheme was abortive. Other efforts were 
made by the state in 1837, and in 1839, when in each year 
$30,000 were appropriated from the " three per cent fund " 
for improving the Coosa." With these small amounts, 

" Reports of Major Mahan, 1897; and of Major Mahan and Cap- 
tain Flagler, 1899; also Statutes at Large, vol. xxx. 

" Report of Major Mahan, 1894. 

"Acts of Alabama: "Coosa Navigation Company," incorporated 
by Act, December 30, 1823. 

"Acts of Alabama, 1837 and 1839. 



169] River and Harbor Improvement. 51 

however, no permanent work resulted. In 1876 the work 
of improvement began by the Federal Government. The 
river is divided into two sections: (i) that lying between 
Rome and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Rail- 
road Bridge and (2) that lying between this bridge and 
Wetumpka. On the first of these divisions the plan pro- 
vided for eight locks and dams at the points of greater 
obstruction and for works of contraction and channel ex- 
cavation for points less troublesome. It is on the second 
of these sections that the most serious difficulties are en- 
countered. Here a series of twenty-three locks and dams 
must be constructed, and the accomplishment of this end 
is the present plan. Appropriations from the Government 
have been as follows:" 

Fro^n Rome to E. T. V. & G. R. R. Bridge: 

August 14, 1876 $ 30,000.00 

June 18, 1878 75,000.00 

March 3, 1879 45,000.00 

June 14, 1880 75,000.00 

March 5, 1881 60,000.00 

August 2, 1882 83,700.00 

July 5, 1884 50,000.00 

August 5, 1886 45,000.00 

August II, 1888 60,000.00 

September 19, 1890 150,000.00 

July 13, 1892 130,000.00 

August 18, 1894 1 10,000.00 

June 3, 1899 20,000.00 

Total $983,700.00 

From Bridge to Wetumpka'. 

September 19. 1890 $150,000.00 

July 13, 1892 100,000.00 

August 18, 1894 1 10,000.00 

June 3, 1896 50,000.00 

Total $410,000.00 

Work was not begun on the lower of these two sections 
until after 1890, for in this year the first appropriation was 

" Reports of Engineers and Statutes at Large. 



52 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [170 

made for the specific work. The Coosa River flows 
through the mineral regions of North Alabama, the agri- 
cultural belt of Middle Alabama and the timber districts 
of Southern Alabama, and its importance as a commercial 
route can hardly be overestimated. The appropriations 
for this river have been so small that very little of the 
Avork to be done has been yet effected, and it has been 
-estimated that at the present rate "it will be 150 years be- 
fore this section will have water transportation for its coal 
and iron to Mobile.'"" 

(6) The Cahaba. — Above Ceritreville, Alabama, the 
Cahaba River, though flowing through the extensive Ca- 
haba coal fields, cannot be utilized. The river in this sec- 
tion consists of a series of pools and rapids which can be 
overcome only by extensive use of locks and dams, a plan 
too expensive to be feasible. Surveys of this stream were 
made in 1875 and 1881, and under recommendations then 
made a plan was adopted which contemplated obtaining 
a navigable channel from its mouth to Centreville, a dis- 
tance of 88 miles. This was to be accomplished by the 
removal of snags and logs, by excavating gravel bars and 
deepening sand bars by works of contraction and shore 
protection. For this purpose the Government appro- 
priated $45,000.00 between August 2, 1882, and July 13, 
1892. Two railroad bridges without draws, one ten miles, 
the other twenty-two miles, above the mouth of the Ca- 
haba, prevent any commercial use being made of the 
river, and as no efforts have ever been made to compel 
the placing of draws in the bridges, work has been sus- 
pended and no further allotments made to this river."' 

(7) Conecuh and Escambia. — This river, north of 
Florida and Alabama fine, is known as tlie Conecuh; south 
of that line as the Escambia. This stream is of more im- 
portance probably to Florida than to Alabama. It sup- 

** Report of Major Mahan, 1894. 
" Report of Major Mahan, 1894. 



171] River and Harbor Improvement. 53 

plies two-thirds of all the timber, which is the principal 
export product of Pensacola. The commerce of this 
stream in 1895 was estimated at $2,000,000.00, consisting 
almost exclusively of timber products. The project of im- 
provement provides for securing and maintaining a 
channel sufficient for the passage of timber rafts from 
the mouth of Indian Creek in Alabama to Pensacola, 
Florida. To this end $102,500.00 have been appropriated 
between March 2, 1833, and March 3, 1899. 

(8) The Alab.\ma. — For the improvement of this river 
the appropriations have been as follows i"* 

June 18, 1878 $ 25,000.00 

March 3, 1879 30,000.00 

June 14, 1880 25,000.00 

March 3, 1881 20,000.00 

August 2, 1882 20,000.00 

July 5, 1884 10,000.00 

August 5, 1886 15,000.00 

August II, 1888 20,000.00 

September 19, 1890 20,000.00 

July 13. 1892 70,000.00 

August 18, 1894 50,000.00 

June 3, 1896 40,000.00 

March 3, 1899 50,000.00 

Total $395,000.00 

The original project for improvement was to obtain a 
channel four feet deep at low water with a minimum width 
of two hundred feet from Wetumpka to the junction of 
the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, a distance of three 
hundred and twenty-three miles. This plan, adopted in 
1876, was amended in 1891 so as to provide for a depth 
of six feet. In its original condition, owing to logs, snags, 
fallen trees, bars and shoals, the navigation of this river 
was difficult and tardy. The work done has been to re- 
move these obstructions, to blast and dredge rock and 
gravel bars and to deepen sand bars by works of contrac- 
tion and shore protection. The channel has been much 



Report of Major Mahan July 10, 1897; and Statutes at Large. 



64 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [172 

improved and is now navigable from Montgomery to Mo- 
bile during the greater portion of the year. The com- 
merce of the Alabama River is important, averaging an- 
nually from six to nine million dollars/* 

(9) Mobile Harbor. — The Mobile Bay from its mouth 
to the city wharves is thirty miles; its width at its entrance 
from the Gulf is three and a quarter miles, at its lower 
anchorage about twenty miles and at its northern extremity 
it again narrows down to a width of about eight and a half 
miles." In the original condition of this bay the wharves 
of Mobile could not be reached by a vessel of any consid- 
erable size owing to obstructions in the channel, particu- 
larly at the points known as Choctaw Pass, where the 
channel was only five and a half feet deep, and Dog River 
Bar where the depth was only eight feet." All vessels ex- 
cept those of very light draft were forced to lie in the lower 
anchorage twenty-seven miles from the city. All cargoes 
had to be transported to and from there by lighters at an 
annual cost of not less than $100,000.00. Cotton and other 
goods in passing up and down the bay were " liable to 
damage from exposure to weather and it is fair to suppose 
that it was a prominent reason for the Liverpool cotton 
merchants assuming, as they did, that cotton going by way 
of New Orleans arrived in better order, and so should bring 
a better price than when they went by way of Mobile." ** 
This was the status when work was begun by the Federal 
Government in 1827. Since that date there have been five 
different projects of improvement: (a) Under the original 
plan between 1827 and 1857 an unobstructed channel was 
obtained ten feet deep and about two hundred wide from 
Mobile to the Gulf of Mexico, (b) In 1870 the second 



" Reports of Engineers. 1896, 1897 and 1899. 

" Berney: Hand-Book of Alabama, p. 504. 

" Report of Major Rossell, 1896. 

** Memorial and Proceedings of the Rivers and Harbors Improve- 
ment Convention assembled at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, November 
17, 1885. p. 38. 



173] Riz'cr and Harbor Improvement. 55 

stage was entered upon when a channel was planned 
from the city to the gulf thirteen feet in depth and 
three hundred feet wide, (c) The plan was again amended 
in 1878 to provide for a channel of seventeen feet depth 
and two hundred feet width. This project was com- 
pleted in 1889. (d) While the plan was nearing com- 
pletion another was adopted. In 1888 work began 
under the fourth project which provided for a channel 
twenty-three feet deep at mean low water. The upper 
end of this proposed channel was moved from Mobile 
to the mouth of the Chickasabogue Creek, thus adding 
a little more than two miles to the length of the chan- 
nel, (e) The River and Harbor Act of March 3, 1899, 
appropriated $100,000 for continuing this improvement: 
" provided, that a contract or contracts may be entered 
into by the Secretary of War for such materials and work 
as may be necessary with the view of ultimately securmg 
a channel twenty-three feet deep and one hundred feet 
wide at the bottom, with appropriate slope, to be paid for 
as appropriations may from time to time be made by law, 
not to exceed in the aggregate $500,000.00, exclusive of 
the amount herein and heretofore appropriated." Under 
this provision the contract has been awarded and accord- 
ing to this plan work is now in progress." 

The appropriations for this work have been as follows: " 

May 20, 1826 $ 10.000.00 

March 2, 1829 20,000.00 

June 23, 1834 10,000.00 

March 3, 1835 " 7.OQ7.60 

March 3, 1837 50,000.00 

July 7, 1838 50,000.00 

August 30, 1852 50,000.00 

March 3, 1857 20,833.08 

(Relief claim) 

July 1 1, 1870 50,000,0.'^ 

March 3. 1871 50,000.08 



* Report of Major Wm. I. Rossell, July 20, 1896; and July 20, 

1899. 

'* Reports of Engineers and Statutes at Large. 



56 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [174 

June 10, 1872 $75,000.00 

March 3, 1873 100,000.08 

June 23, 1874 100,000.08 

March 3, 1875 26,000.08 

June 18, 1878 10,000.08 

March 3, 1879 100,000.08 

June 14, 1880 125,000.08 

March 3, 1881 100,000.00 

August 2, 1882 125,000.00 

July 5, 1884 200,000.00 

August 6, 1886 90,000.00 

August II, 1888 250,000.00 

September 19, 1890 350,000.00 

July 13, 1892 212,500.00 

March 3, 1893 500,000.00 

August 18, 1894 390,000.00 

Mai^i 2, 1895 291,300.00 

March 16, 1896 160,000.00 

June 3, 1896 60,000.00 

June 4, 1897 25,000.00 

July I, 1898 30,000.00 

March 3, 1899 100,000.00 

Total $3,748,630.68 

As will be seen from the above appropriations this work 
was neglected by the Federal Government between the 
years 1857 ^^^ 1870. The channel was found to have 
shoaled to seven and a half feet at Choctaw Pass in i860." 
The matter was brought to the attention of the State Legis- 
lature and an act was passed on February 21, i860, ap- 
pointing a " Board of Harbor Commissioners " who were 
to " deepen and improve the bay and harbor." Funds with 
which to operate were to be raised by issuing bonds of 
Mobile County not to exceed $800,000.00. To meet these 
bonds and accruing interest the county officials were em- 
powered to assess the people of Mobile County at the rate 
of twenty cents on every hundred dollars. The state as 
an aid to the work, was to give one-fifth of all revenues 
collected by the state from that county. When the im- 
provements made should enable vessels of eight feet 

"Acts of Alabama, 1859-60. 



175] River and Harbor Improvement. 57 

draught to approach the city wharves, at low tide, then six 
cents per ton were authorized to be charged on all cargoes 
until the debt was discharged. The act required that the 
consent of Congress should be obtained. It appears that 
Congress did not approve the plan and nothing was done. 

In 1867, the citizens of Mobile County procured the 
passage of another act of the Legislature appointing a 
Board for the prosecution of this work and requiring that 
the Revenue Commissioners of Mobile County should issue 
bonds (county) to the amount of $1,000,000.00" for this 
purpose. About $200,000.00" were thus raised and ex- 
pended by Mobile County before the repeal of the act by 
the Legislature of 1872-3. From these efforts no per- 
manent improvements resulted. In 1870 the work was re- 
sumed by the Federal Government and since that date has 
gone steadily forward, gradually admitting to the city 
wharves vessels of heavier and heavier draft. A letter 
from Mr. A. C. Banner, of Mobile, to Major Rossell, on 
June 9, 1896, states that " Mobile's tonnage movement for 
a period of nine years shows an increase of 458 per cent 
up to September i, ultimo, and every month during the 
current year shows a steady and continuous increase of 
use for the channel." ** Between 1896 and 1899, there was 
an increase of 32 per cent in the tonnage of timber, lumber, 
shingles, staves and cotton passing through this port.'" 

(10) The Tombigbee. — The work done on this stream 
is divided into the following sections: 

(a) From Walker's Bridge, Mississippi, to Fulton, Mis- 
sissippi, a distance of two and three quarter miles; 

(b) From Fulton to Columbus, Mississippi, fourteen 
miles ; 



*' Acts of Legislature, 1866-67, p. 507. 

■" Memorial and proceedings of the Rivers and Harbors Improve- 
ment Convention: Assembled at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1885, p. 35. 
** Report of Major Rossell, 1899. 
" Report of Major Rossell, 1899. 



68 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [176 

(c) From Columbus to Demopolis, Alabama, one hun- 
dred and fifty six miles; 

(d) From Demopolis to the mouth of the Tombigbee, 
at its junction with the Alabama, a distance of one hundred 
and ninety-one miles. The improvements thus cover a 
distance of five hundred and fifteen and three quarter 
miles.°" 

(a) Tlie plan on this portion has been to secure and 
maintain a channel for high-water navigation by the re- 
moval of snags, logs and overhanging trees. Appropri- 
ations toward this end began with the act of August ii, 
1888, and from that date to the last River and Harbor bill 
of March 3, 1899, have amounted to $14,000.00 for this 
section. Work was promptly begun in 1888 and a channel 
has been secured which, at a rise of three feet above low 
water, is navigable by boats of light draft and by the many 
rafts of timber which are sent down the river to Mobile 
from this section, (b) The plan for section (a) is practi- 
cally the same as that for section (b). from Fulton to Co- 
lumbus. Work on this second division, however, began 
earlier than on the first, and dates back to the survey au- 
thorized by act of June 10, 1872. This project was com- 
pleted in 1882 with a total expenditure to that date of 
$27,293.65, from the funds allotted to the Warrior and 
Tombigbee Rivers." For the maintenance of this improve- 
ment separate appropriations began with the act of July 
13, 1892, and aggregated $23,000.00 including the amount 
carried by act of March 3, 1899." 

(c) From Columbus to Demopolis the plan is to obtain 
a channel six feet deep at low water and maintain it by 
snagging and dredging and by constructing locks and 
dams." Up to the year 1890 work was done from the 



" Report of Major Rossell, 1896. 
" Report of Major Rossell, 1896 and 1899. 

" Report of Major Rossell. 1899: and Statutes at Large, vol. xxx. 
p. 1139- 
" Rossell's Report for 1899. 



177] River and Harbor Improvement. 59 

appropriations made to the " Warrior and Tombigbee 
Rivers " and (after 1880) to the " Tombigbee from Colum- 
bus to \'ienna." In 1890 specific appropriations began for 
this section and from that date, September 19, to March 3, 
1899, inclusive, $160,000.00 have been allotted this division, 
(d) From Demopolis to the mouth of the Tombigbee 
was improved by works of a temporary character between 
1870, when the first surveys were made, and 1888. In the 
latter year an act, of August 11, directed a new survey to 
bo made. The project adopted under this survey is to 
obtain by snagging and dredging a channel of six feet at 
low water, and to overcome the chief obstruction, McGraw 
Shoals one hundred and eleven miles above Mobile, by 
locks and dams. To 1890 the funds for this section were 
allotted from the appropriations to the Warrior and Tom- 
bigbee rivers, and the exact amount expended here is not 
known. In this year the appropriations become separate 
for this division and including the amount of March 3, 
1899, aggregate $380,000.00. 

A summary of the appropriations for the Tombigbee 
River would then be as follows: 
For Warrior and Tombigbee from 

March 3, 1875, to March 3, 1879 '* $110,000.00 

For Tombigbee 

June 14, 1880 $ 31,000.00 

March 3, 1881 15.378.00 

August 2, 1882 21 ,000.00 

July 5, 1884 25,000.00 

August 5, 1886 18.750.00 

August II, 1888 12,500.00 

On Section (a) 1886-1899 14.000.00 

On Section (b) 1892-1899 23,000.00 

On Section (c) 1890-1899 160,000.00 

On Section (d) 1890-1899 380,000.00 

Total $810,628.00" 



" Between these dates appropriations were made to those two 
rivers collectively and it is impossible to determine from the re- 
ports submitted the amounts expended on each separate river. 

" Acts of Alabama, December 19, 1837. 



60 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [178 

To this amount must be added the $25,000.00 appro- 
priated by the State Legislature from the three per cent 
fund. 

(11) The Warrior. — This river extends from its junc- 
tion with the Tombigbee at DemopoHs, to Tuscaloosa, 
a distance of one hundred and thirty miles. Above 
Tuscaloosa the stream is known as the Blaciv Warrior. 
In its original condition the Warrior was so obstructed 
that its channel was not navigable except during high 
water and then navigation was extremely difficult and 
hazardous. The first survey was made in 1874. The first 
appropriation was made and in June following, work was 
begun. The improvements made up to 1890 were of 
a temporary character. In that year a new plan was 
adopted which proposed to obtain a channel of six feet 
depth by the ■ removal of logs and snags and overhang- 
ing trees and by the construction of locks and dams.'" 
Six of the latter will be required between Tuscaloosa and 
Demopolis. The act of March 3, 1899, provides for the 
making of contracts for the construction of three of these 
locks and dams "next below Tuscaloosa" " and under these 
conditions work is now in progress. 

Prior to 1879 the work done was by funds from the 

appropriations to the Warrior and Tombigbee.'' Since 

that date separate appropriations have been made for the 

Warrior as follows:"* 

June 4, 1880 $ 20,000.00 

March 3, 1881 10,622.00 

August 2, 1882 II 1,000.00 

July 5, 1884 12,000.00 

August 5, 1886 18.750.00 

August II, 1888 18,000.00 

September 19, 1890 45,000.00 

July 13, 1892 75,000.00 

'"' Report of Major Rossell, 1896. 

" Statutes at Large, vol. xxx. 

°' Summarized above under the Tombigbee. 

'"' Report of Major Rossell, 1879. 



179] River and Harbor Improvement. 61 

August II, 1894 $ 40,000.00 

June 3, 1896 70,000.00 

March 3, 1899 220,000.00 

Total $539,372.00 

(12) The Black Warrior. — A large section of North 

Alabama, estimated at eight thousand square miles 

is drained by this river. The lands which skirt the 

river are fertile and productive and along its banks are 

found large and valuable deposits of coal. To get water 

transportation from the " Warrior Coal Fields " to 

Mobile is the main object for which improvements 

have been undertaken, both on the Black Warrior and 

the Warrior rivers. The improvements on the Black 

Warrior cover a distance of fifteen miles, from Tuscaloosa 

to Daniels Creek. The present project for improvement 

was adopted in 1887 and proposes to construct five locks 

and fixed dams with a total Uft of fifty-two feet. Work 

toward this end began in 1888 and three of the locks have 

been completed. On March 3, 1899, provision was made 

for the construction of the fourth lock and work is now 

in progress.*" 

The appropriations have been as follows: 

July 5, 1884 $ 50,000.00 

August I, 1886 56,250.00 

August II, 1888 100,000.00 

September i, 1890 150,000.00 

July 13, 1892 200,000.00 

August 18, 1894 37,500.00 

June 3, 1896 10,000.00 

March 3, 1899 50,000.00 

Total $653,750.00 

The State Legislature appropriated,*" in addition to 
this amount $20,000.00 to this river from the three per 
cent fund, as has been already mentioned in another con- 
nection. 

"" Report of Major Rossell, 1896 and 1899. 
" Acts of Alabama, February 7, 1839. 



62 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [180 

Including the original land grant for the Tennessee 
River, the amounts expended by the Federal Government 
upon these items of improvement as above enumerated 
aggregate $14,186,106.71. Thus Alabama has received 
about two-thirds of one per cent of the amount which has 
been expended by the government upon such works in the 
various states of the Union."" In the projects now in exe- 
cution for the improvements of the Alabama rivers the 
chief object is to accelerate the development of her mineral 
resources by giving water transportation to the gulf. It 
is estimated that when the present plans are completed 
coal can be carried to Mobile at a charge of twenty-five 
cents per ton, while the present rate by rail is one dollar 
per ton. With this reduction in freight rate coal can be 
delivered to vessels in Mobile at not exceeding $1.25 per 
short ton, and Alabama would be enabled to compete with 
England as an exporter of coal to South America and in 
the East, and West Indies.** In paging through the acts 
of Alabama one is impressed with the fact that water trans- 
portation has been of vital importance to the state. In 
the early days her rivers and their small tributary creeks 
served as her chief arteries of trade. Numerous acts in- 
corporating " Navigation Companies " show that practi- 
cally all the rivers in the state, even the smallest, were once 
used as lines of transportation. During the twenties, thir- 
ties and forties we find the tributaries to these rivers, the 
majority of them insignificant creeks, are declared by 
successive acts of the Legislature as " public highways " 
and to fell trees across them, to throw logs into them, or 
to otherwise obstruct their passage was declared a public 
offense and punishable by law. With the development of 
Alabama's railroad system the great majority of these old 
lines have been abandoned and onlv the fittest have sur- 



" Proceedings of the Rivers and Harbors Improvement Conven- 
tion (Tuscaloosa, 1897), p. 48: Address of General Joseph Wheeler. 

" Proceedings of the Rivers and Harbors Improvement Conven- 
tion, 1897, pp. 35-36. 



181] River and Harbor Imp^rovement. 63 

vived. With this transformation has come a shifting of 
trade and business from the old conservative villages which 
slumber on the river's edge to the more active and spirited 
railroad points. While the greater portion of the business 
in Alabama is now done by railroads yet the influence of 
the rivers as competitors is most potent in guaranteeing 
reasonable rates. Wlien the rivers are in boating order 
freights are low and, vice versa, low rivers make high 
rates." Thus in Alabama as in other states of the Union, 
observation and experience point to the fact that the 
maintenance of a good system of water transportation 
affords the most effective safeguard against the potential 
evils of railroad consolidations which tend to throttle com- 
petition. 

" This fact is illustrated in the report on the Tombigbee for i88l. 
When the river, a competing line with the Mobile and Ohio Rail- 
road, is navigable, freight charges are reduced by the railroad. 
In 1879-80 the charge on cotton per bale was $3.25 by rail during 
the low-water season. When the Tombigbee became navigable 
rates prevailed ranging only from 50c. to $1.25 per bale. Memo- 
rial and Proceedings of Rivers and Harbors Improvement Conven- 
tion, 1885, pp. 53-54. 



CHAPTER III 
CONSTRUCTION OF RAILROADS 

Federal Land Grants 

The policy of Federal aid to railway building as with 
other forms of internal improvement has been a gradual 
growth. Legislation has proceeded not by sudden and rad- 
ical measures differing from all precedent, but by small be- 
ginnings which gradually prepared the pubhc mind for the 
more elaborate schemes which were to follow. From the 
policy of aid to wagon roads, canals, river and harbor im- 
provements, we have been brought to the idea of small en- 
couragement of railroad building. The granting of "rights 
of way " through the public domains to various railroad 
companies together with small lots of land for the erection 
of stations served as the precedents upon which was to be 
based the system of more positive aid by large grants of 
public land. Congress by act of March 2, 1827' gave to 
the state of Indiana a large tract of land to aid in 
constructing the Wabash and Erie Canal. On March 2, 
1833 ' Congress authorized the state of Illinois to divert 
its canal grant and to use the proceeds from these lands 
in the construction of a railroad should the latter seem 
preferable to a canal. Tliis was the first congressional 
enactment providing for a land grant in aid of a railroad.' 
This privilege was not utilized by the state, but the act 
serves to show the growth of the feeling that if Congress 
could aid in making canals it could also aid in building 



' U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. iv, p. 236. 
'^ U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. iv, p. 662. 

' Public Land Commission, Exec. Doc, 3rd Sess., 46th Cong., 
Pts. i and iv, p. 261. 



183] Canstniction of Railroads. 65 

railroads, and points to the fact that public aid will increase 
to such works as enthusiasm mounts higher for improve- 
ments of this character. The first right of way (thirty feet 
on each side of its line) through the public lands for a 
railroad, from Tallahassee to St. Marks, with use of tim- 
bers and other building materials and ten acres of land as 
the terminus, was granted to a Florida company by act 
of March 3, 1835.* From this time forward similar priv- 
ileges were granted to various other railroad companies 
up to 1850 when was passed the first railroad act of any 
real importance. This act was skilfully engineered through 
Congress by Senator Douglas of Illinois in the interest of 
the Illinois Central Railroad, and initiated that system 
of Congressional land-grants which prevailed until after 
July I, 1862.° On the latter date a new system was in- 
augurated in aiding the Pacific railroads. Formerly the 
grants had been made to the state as guardians or trustees 
for the roads, thus yielding to the old contention that 
Congress could not create a corporation to do business 
in a state without the consent of that state. After 1862 
this claim was disregarded, as were many others of the old 
State's Rights theories; the grants are now usually made 
to the corporation direct thus brushing aside the state as 
trustee or agent of transfer." Under these two systems 
(the granting of alternate sections^ either to the state or 
to the corporation direct) the Federal Government to June 
30, 1880, had made railroad grants amounting to about two 



* U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. iv, p. 778. 

° Public Land Commission, pts. i and iv, p. 261. 

" Public Land Commission, pts. i and iv, p. 257. 

^ This system was based on the claim that when the alternate 
sections were thus granted along the line of the railroad the 
sections retained by the Government would be enhanced in value. 
The price per acre, therefore, of the remaining contiguous sec- 
tions was doubled, being raised from $1.25 minimum price to $2.50 
per acre; thus it was contended the Government lost nothing by 
the grants. Speech of Senators Douglas and Shields, Cong. Globe, 
vol. xxi, pt. i, pp. 844-48. 
S 



66 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [IS-i 

hundred and fifteen million acres of land. In 1881 it was 
estimated that the amount would be reduced by forfeitures 
to 155,504,994 acres." 

The pioneer railroa-d bill was passed only after it had 
been closely debated." Senator Douglas, some years 
later, in speaking of its passage, remarks: "If any man 
ever passed a bill I did that one. I did the whole work 
and was devoted to it for two years." The bill was in- 
troduced in Congress in 1848 and was bitterly opposed by 
many (the Representatives and one of the Senators of 
Alabama among the number) both on account of inexped- 
iency and because of constitutional objections." Senator 
Bagby of Alabama committed himself firmly to the oppo- 
sition, " For myself," he said when speaking of the bill, 
" I shall consider it my duty to resist such propositions to 
the last — there is no soundness in the proposition and it 
is in vain to tell us that the constitutional question can be 
settled by precedent."" From the tone of the debates, 
however, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Sen- 
ator Douglas's bill though fettered by constitutional ob- 
jections, would finally be passed, and others manifested a 
desire to secure some of the good things while they were 
going. Thus while Senator Bagby was planting himself 
firmly in the opposition his colleague, Senator King, was 
busying himself with introducing bills carrying similar 
grants for prospective railroads in Alabama." The bill 
in 1848 passed the Senate but failed in the House. In 1850 
the project came forward again with brighter prospects. 
Senator King was one of the most ardent advocates while 
his colleague was no longer heard in the opposition. To the 
Mississippi representatives also the bill seems to have be- 
come less objectionable. In the meantime Senator Doug- 



* Public Lands, pts. i and iv, p. 268. 

" Cong. Globe, vol. xxi, pt. i, pp. 844-54 and 867-74. 

'" Cong. Globe, Appendix to vol. xi, pp. 534-37- 

" Cong. Globe, ist Sess. 30th Cong., Appendix, p. 535. 

" Cong. Globe, ist Sess., 30th Cong., 1848, pp. 999. 1038, 1051. 



185] Cmistrnction of Railroads. 67 

las had heard that the Mobile Railroad, then building, had 
failed for want of means. Going to Mobile he met the 
directors of the railroad company and proposed to procure 
a land grant for that road by making it a part of his 
Illinois Central Railroad bill, provided the Representatives 
and Senators from Alabama and Mississippi (the two states 
most interested in the success of the Mobile Railroad) 
would support his measure. The proposition was accepted, 
Senator Douglas returned to Washington, and through 
the influence of the directors of the Mobile road the legis- 
latures of Alabama and Mississippi instructed their Con- 
gressmen and Senators to support the bill after it had been 
so amended as to carry for these states privileges propor- 
tionately equal to those gained for Illinois." With all dig- 
nity and deference the amendment offered by King'* was 
accepted by Douglas. The bill now assumed, in the eyes of 
some, a more constitutional aspect. The opposition was 
so weakened that by further skilful manipulation it was 
finally passed by a small majority and became a law on 
September 20, 1850. The act granted to the state of Illi- 
nois, for the purpose of aiding in making the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad and its branches, " every alternate section of 
land designated by even numbers, for six sections in width 
on each side of said road and branches," " and carried for 
Illinois 2,595,053 acres ol land.'" The amendment (section 
7 of the act) is as follows: "And be it further enacted, 
that in order to aid in the construction of said Central 
Railroad from the mouth of the Ohio River to the City of 
Mobile, all the rights, privileges and liabilities hereinbefore 
conferred on the State of Illinois shall be granted to tlie 
States of Alabama and Mississippi respectively, for the pur- 
pose of aiding in the construction of a railroad from said 
City of Mobile to a point near the mouth of the Ohio River, 



Public Land Commission, pts. i and iv, p. 263. 
Cong. Globe, vol. xxi, pt. i, p. 845. 
Public Land Commission, pts. ii and iii, p. 180. 
Public Land Commission, pts. ii and iii, p. 180. 



68 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [186 

and that public lands of the United States, to the same 
extent in proportion to the length of the road, on the same 
terms, limitations and restrictions in every respect, shall 
be, and are hereby, granted to said States of Alabama and 
Mississippi respectively." Under this act and others 
based upon it as precedent the state of Alabama has re- 
ceived the following amounts of land granted as aid to 
lailroad building." 

ACRES. 

Mobile & Ohio, September 20, 1850 419,528.44 

Alabama & Florida, May 17, 1856 399,022.84 

Selma, Rome & Dalton," June 3, 1856 858,515.98 

Alabama & Chattanooga, June 3, 1856 652,966.66 

South & North Alabama, June 3, 1856 445,158.78 

Mobile & Girard,'* June 3, 1856 302,181.16 

Total 3,077,373.86 *" 

The Two and Three Per Cent Funds. — Congress by act 
providing for the admission of Ohio into the Union de- 
•clared that" " One-twentieth part of the net proceeds 
•of the lands lying within the said state sold by Congress, 
from and after the thirtieth day of June (1802) .... shall 
"be applied to laying out and making public roads leading 
from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic to 
the Ohio, to the said state and through same, such roads 
to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the 
-consent of the several states through which the roaB shall 

" Taken from Report of Secretary of Public Lands, 1897. House 
Documents, vol. xii, p. 225. Amounts indicate the number of acres 
granted up to June 30, 1897. 

" The original act made the grant to aid the Alabama and Ten- 
nessee Railroad; a later act transferred the lands to the Selma, 
Rome and Dalton road. 

"The original grant carried 504,145.86 acres, but owing to for- 
feitures this was reduced to the above amount by an adjustment 
made April 24, 1893. 

""In addition to this, 67,784.96 acres were granted Alabama for 
the Coosa and Tennessee road. Of the construction of the road 
there was no evidence found in the General Land Office up to 1897 
and the grant is supposed to have lapsed. 

" Statutes at Large, vol. ii, p. 173, April 30, 1802. 



187] Construction of Railroads. 69 

pass." All public lands in Ohio were to be exempt from 
taxation by the state for a term of five years from the 
date of their purchase by settlers and this five per cent of 
the land sales was offered as one of the items of com- 
pensation to the state for this relief given to her immi- 
grants. The people of Ohio in accepting the terms tor her 
admission requested that three-fifths of this fund might be 
applied to making roads within her borders under the con- 
trol and supervision of the State Legislature, while the re- 
maining two-fifths was to be expended by Congress in mak- 
ing roads leading to the state. This proposal was accepted 
by Congress and found expression in the modified act for 
Ohio's admission into the Union." Thus originated the 
custom according to which so many of our states, upon 
their admission, were given their " two and three per cent 
funds " on the same condition under which Ohio received 
hers. On March 2, 1819, Congress passed the act pro- 
viding for the admission of Alabama into the Union. 
Under this law five per cent of the net proceeds of the 
lands lying within the territory of Alabama and sold by 
Congress from and after the first day of September, 1819, 
was " reserved for making public roads, canals, and im- 
proving the navigation of rivers " three-fifths to be applied 
within the state under the direction of the State Legislature 
" and two-fifths to the making of a road or roads leading 
to the said state under the direction of Congress." " Thus 
originated what was designated the ^' two and three per 
cent fund " and which was the subject of so much discus- 
sion and controversy in the history of Alabama's legis- 
lation. Congress constructed no road leading to the state 
and up to September 4, 1841, no disposition had been 
made of the two per cent fund. On that date Congress 
passed an act" relinquishing this fund to the state of 

" Act of March 3, 1803, Statutes at Large, vol. ii, p. 225. 

" Statutes at Large, vol. 3, p. 491. 

"^ Statutes at Large, vol. v, p. 457, sec. 17. 



70 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [188 

Alabama on condition that the fund should be " faith- 
fully applied under the direction of the Legislature of Ala- 
bama, to the connection by some means of internal im- 
provement, of the navigable waters of the Bay of Mobile 
with the Tennessee River, and to the construction of a 
continuous line of internal improvements from a point 
on the Chattahoochee River opposite West Point, in Geor- 
gia, across the state of Alabama, in a direction to Jackson 
in the state of Mississippi." The terms were accepted and 
the state became thus the sole trustee for both funds. The 
Legislature by act of December lo, 1823, invested the 
three per cent fund in the State Bank of Alabama, mak- 
ing it an integral part of the capital of that institution and 
only $135,000" was expended in efforts at internal improve- 
ments. With the failure of the bank the whole of the 
fund was lost. In 1859 a joint Committee from the two 
Houses of the Assembly reported that the state of Ala- 
bama as trustee was responsible for all moneys which had 
been received, together with interest at six per cent, from 
the dates upon which the amounts had been paid by the 
United States. According to this view the state owed to 
this three per cent fund $858,498. With this report the 
Legislature concurred. The amount assumed by the state 
as her indebtedness to the fund, was distributed, as loans, 
to various railroad enterprises as follows." 

North East and South West Railroad Co $218,135.00 

Wills Valley Railroad Co 75,000.00 

Selma and Gulf Railroad Co 40,000.00 

Cahaba, Marion and Greensboro Railroad Co... 25,000.00 

Opelika and Oxford Railroad Co 50,000.00 

Montgomery and Eufaula Railroad Co 30,000.00 

Tennessee and Coosa Railroad Co 195,363.00 

Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad Co 225,000.00 

Total $858,498.00 



" Acts 1837-39. Spent on rivers in the state, as detailed in the 
previous chapter. 
" By Act approved February 18, i860. 
" Auditor's Report, October 12, 1869. 



189] Construction of Railroads. 71 

These loans were to bear interest at the rate of six 
per cent and were secured by bonds. By act of December 
30, 1868, the " South and North Alabama Railroad Co." 
was given the entire fund. All the bonds, securities and 
obUgations belonging to this fund were transferred to the 
company, and the state was released from all habilities, and 
control over the fund passed to this railroad as sole bene- 
ficiary. 

The two per cent fund passed to state control in 1841 

under the conditions which have been already given. From 

this fund loans were made as follows:"' 

Montgomery and Eufaula Railroad, March i, 184S $116,782.64 

Marengo Plank Road Co., December 13, 1853 9,477.47 

Alabama and Mississippi Rivers Railroad Co., Feb. 27, 

^^SS 28,963.72 

Alabama and Mississippi Rivers Railroad Co., Feb. 15, 

1858 23,178.74 



Total $178,402.57 

The above amounts contributed to the completion of the 
East and West line of internal improvements across the 
state. 



Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, May 3, 1851.. 
Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, May 5, 1852.. 
Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, April 26, 1855. 
Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, Feb. 15, 1858. . 
Tennessee and Coosa River Railroad Co., Feb. 15, 1856. 



$ 65,961.73 
62,179.83 
17,726.47 
23.178.78 
33-513-25 



Total $202,560.06 

These amounts contributed to the completion of that 
plan so long discussed and cherished by the people of 
Alabama — the connection of North and South Alabama by 
some line of transportation. Thus, too, were fulfilled the 
conditions upon which the two per cent fund was surrend- 
ered by Congress to state control. By act of December 
30, 1868, the South and North Alabama Railroad was 
declared the beneficiary of the two and three per cent funds. 



Auditor's Report, October 12, 1869. 



72 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [190 

The greater portion of this two per cent fund was now in 

the hands of various railroad companies to whom loans 

had been made for the purpose of encouraging the several 

railroad projects throughout the state. In accordance 

with this act of 1868 the bonds and securities executed by 

these railroad companies were delivered to the " South and 

North Alabama Railroad Co." and were as follows: 

North East and South West Alabama Railroad Co $306,468.00 

Wills Valley Railroad Co 87,375.00 

Alabama and Mississippi Railroad Co 66,500.00 

Montgomery and Eufaula Railroad Co 36,051.84 

Opelika and Oxford Railroad Co 66,500.00 

Cahaba, Marion and Greensboro Railroad Co 38,611.75 

Total $601,506.59'* 

Thus the bulk of the " two and three per cent fund " was 
bestowed upon the " South and North Alabama Railroad." 
This road was put in operation in 1872. It connects De- 
catur, Alabama, on the Tennessee, with Montgomery, on 
the Alabama River. The road has one hundred and eighty- 
five miles^" of track and is now operated as a part of the 
Louisville and Nashville system." 

State Aid: Policy Prior to Civil War. 

In 1832-3 was constructed the first railroad in Alabama. 
This road ran from Decatur to Tuscumbia.'" This was 
followed by the construction of the Western Railroad from 
Selma by Montgomery to the eastern boundary of Ala- 
bama, the second line of the state. From this time an 
interest in railroad building grew apace, and there de- 
veloped a strong feeUng among the people that the state 
should render some positive aid towards improvements of 
this character.'' Various obstacles, however, prevented 

*" Auditor's Report, October 12, 1869. 
'" Barney's Hand-Book of Alabama, p. 385. 
"' Report of the Alaliama Railroad Commissioners, 1898. 
'"Brewer: History of Alabama. 

** Governor's Message of November, 1834, November, 1835, No- 
vember, 1836, December, 1839. 



191] Construction of Railroads. 73 

this feeling from finding expression in any legislative acts. 
In 185 1 the Committee on Internal Improvements made 
their report to the Legislature of Alabama in which the 
policy of the state was reviewed as follows : 

" The history of Alabama from the first of the state to 
the present period exhibits not one serious effort on the 
part of the Legislature to advance the great interests of 
agriculture, commerce or manufactures, which by the form 
of our government are subjected to its protection and 
control. Other states are rich because they are old, but 
our destiny seems to be to grow old and poor together. 
The caravan of the emigrant tells the fate of a young state 
falling into premature decay and deserted for fresher lands 
which in time will probably be doomed to the same fate." 
The state, it is urged, must do something to " consolidate 
her northern and southern sections," she must give her 
citizens an " access to market," that her people become 
" anchored to the soil " and lose their " desire for wander- 
ing to the Far West." ** The report mentioned the fact that 
other states were forging ahead in such works. To items 
of internal improvement Virginia had recently subscribed 
eight milHon dollars; Maryland five millions; New York 
three milHons as a bonus to one enterprise alone, the Erie 
Railroad; Massachusetts six milHons; Missouri two mil- 
lions to the St. Louis and Pacific Railroad ; Tennessee one 
million three hundred thousand loaned to the Chattanooga 
Railroad; Georgia three and a half millions to one road. 
The report urged that Alabama should enlist in aiding 
similar enterprises and recommended that the existing Leg- 
islature endorse railroad bonds to the extent of two million 
dollars. Regardless of this enthusiastic appeal the Legis- 
lature would not commit the state to a positive policy of 
internal improvements. Several causes may be assigned 
as explaining the persistent lethargy or conservatism ov 

" Report of F. Phillipps, Chairman of Committee on Internal Im- 
provements: House Journal, 1851-52. 



74 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [193 

the part of the state. In the first place the state's finances 
Had not yet recovered from the collapse which came with 
the failure of her bank; taxation was still high, the people 
were sensitive to every touch of the tax-gatherer and many 
of them stood ready to oppose any measure which threat- 
ened a higher tax rate. Again the management and suc- 
cess of the old state bank had not been of such a nature as 
to inspire confidence in the integrity or ability of the state 
as an undertaker. Those who opposed the policy of state 
aid used this as one of their strongest arguments, remind- 
ing the people very effectively that the state's past record 
as an entreprenneur was one not altogether glorious. A 
third cause may be found in the fact that there was a 
strong element in the population of Alabama which was 
restless, roving, shifting, and actuated by a spirit of ex- 
ploitation rather than development, not feeling sure that 
they were permanently located, bat thinking of the more 
distant West as the place of final destination." This ele- 
ment acted as a check to the spirit of internal improve- 
ments; for a system of such works, whose completion will 
require an extended period of time, and whose fruits must 
be reaped at some future date, will be advocated only by 
those who feel themselves permanently at home and deeply 
rooted to the soil. There are traces also of sectional 
jealousies creating friction and retarding legislation. Fin- 
ally Alabama was proverbially of the " strict construction " 
school; many of her leading statesmen firmly adhered to 
the principle that taxation should only be employed for 
carrying on government and that the promotion of works 
of internal improvements should be left to private capital. 
In 1853 the subject of state aid to railroads was made 
one of the issues of the state's political campaign." John 

" In 1845-47 there was a strong tide of emigration from Alabama 
to Texas. In 1846 Monroe County alone is said to have thus lost 
1500 of her inhabitants. Lyell: Travels in the United States, vol. 
ii, pp. SS-65. 

'"Garnett: Reminiscences, pp. 577, 580-82. 



193] Canstruction of Railroads. 75 

A. Winston planted himself firmly on the side of opposition 
to public aid and was the successful candidate for Gov- 
ernor. In his inaugural address on December 20, 1853, 
he declared his unwillingness that the state should engage 
in works of internal improvement, or become security for 
such, until the whole public debt should be paid. During 
this session of the Legislature this question was one of 
the chief topics of discussion. Tlie spirit of conservatism, 
how^ever, again prevailed and the Governor's views were 
sustained. The election in 1855, showed that the policy 
of the administration was highly endorsed by the people: 
Governor Winston was reelected by a large majority, hav- 
ing received the largest popular vote that had ever been 
cast in the state for any candidate for the Executive." 
The Legislature which met in the following December 
came fully determined to launch the state into a policy 
of public aid to railroads. The Governor was more de- 
termined that such a principle should not be established, 
and by his frequent exercise of the veto power he became 
known as the " Veto Governor " of Alabama. During this 
session of the Legislature he returned, without his ap- 
proval, thirty-three bills which carried loans or other ad- 
vantages to railroads. In vetoing one of these bills,"' 
the Governor expressed his views at some length and 
assigns the following reasons for withholding his ap- 
proval: (i) By the bill the tax-payers of Limestone County, 
many of them without consenting, will be forced to be- 
come stockholders in a private corporation. " Many able 
jurists and profound statesmen are firm in the conviction 
that such a forced law, or investment, is unwarranted by 
the constitution or by any legitimate influence from the 
principles of our government." The bill cannot be justi- 

"Garnett: Reminiscences, p. 616. 

'" The bill was to enable Limestone County to subscribe $200,000 
to the capital stock of the " Tennessee and Alabama Central Rail- 
road Co." and was passed over the Governor's veto on December 
14, 1855. Acts of Alabama. 



76 Internal Improvetnents in Alabama. [194 

fied by precedent, for to the enlightened statesman be- 
longs " the duty of correcting errors, which, though con- 
secrated by centuries of toleration and backed and propped 
by a thousand precedents, are but errors still." 

(2) It is better " that the construction of railroads, as 
well as all other improvements of supposed public utiUty 
be left to the slower and safer details of interest, rather 
than resort to the doubtful power of making the people 
involuntary builders." The objects, " few and simple," of 
our government are to " protect every man in the legal 
pursuit of wealth and happiness and in the enjoyment of 
the fruits of his own labors." This proposition defeats 
such objects, it opens the door to " anarchy and to the 
legislative and judicial confiscation of the labor and prop- 
erty of the individual for the use of others. It is an act 
of legislative usurpation, and destructive of a government 
founded on justice." Thus deeming the measure both in- 
expedient and unconstitutional he was assured that his 
disapproval would be vindicated both by results and by pop- 
ular approval.^' Again on January 9, 1856,*° he reiterated 
the doctrine that " the only purpose for which the govern- 
ment has a right to tax is to carry on the affairs of the 
government and to pay obligations already existing. 
The experience of Alabama is fruitful of the bitter conse- 
quence of making expediency paramount to principle. The 
proposition to use the credit of the state to promote the 
pecuniary interests of any class of citizens has, almost 
without any opposition, been pronounced against by the 
people of Alabama;" for he had been elected to the Execu- 
tive with the " full understanding " that he would not 
" sanction any measure using or pledging the credit of the 
state for any purpose whatever." Again, there was no 
money in the Treasury available for loans to railroads 
unless the bills of the old state bank and branches ue 



Message of December 13, 1855. House Journal, p. 162. 

Senate Journal, p. 146. 



195] Construction of Railroads. 77 

reissued. To reissue these bills of banks long since put 
in liquidation would be an unconstitutional measure" and 
would result in giving the state a depreciated currency, 
a policy most ruinous to financial interests. Regardless 
of the Governor's firm opposition and over his unequivocal 
vetoes laws were passed granting loans to railroads as 
follows : 

Alabama and Tennessee Rivers Railroad Co., January 21, 

1856 $200,000.00 

Memphis and Charleston Railroad Co., January 21, 1856 300,000.00 

The acts provided that the loans should be secured by 
first mortgage interest bearing bonds and also by " per- 
sonal securities to be approved by the Governor." The 
impression prevailed that the Governor had little confi- 
dence in the solvency of railroad companies and that he 
would be rather exacting in applying the " personal secur- 
ity " clause. At any rate the loans were never called for 
before later acts " repealed the laws authorizing such 
loans. Governor Winston in his annual message of 1857 
rather congratulated himself upon the prosperity and suc- 
cess which had resulted from the triumph of the policy 
to which he had persistently adhered. " By a firm and 
steady course of patient endurance and economy, the 
greater portion of an enormous debt incurred by financial 
empirics and a departure from the legitimate purposes 
of government has been liquidated; and the credit of Ala- 
bama not only sustained untarnished, but restored to that 
high position which it should be our first duty to maintain 
for it. By a steady resistance to the policy of over-zeal- 
ous enthusiasts and interested incorporations, we have 

" The position was held that it would now be the state issuing 
"bills of credit" since the banks were in process of liquidation. 
Up to this time, however, the bills had continued in use and no 
serious objection had been raised, though the constitutionality of 
the practice had been often questioned. U. S. Constitution: Art. 
i. Section 10. 

*^ Passed February 6, 1858. 

LcfC. 



78 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [196 

been enabled to avoid that load of responsibility and debt 
which has been incurred by older and greater states, and 
which for generations must rest upon their people and 
retard their progress. The correctness of the principle of 
an entire separation of state from private enterprises and 
speculations, and leaving to individual energy and private 
capital the construction of such works as the facilities of 
commerce may require, is being established by time and 
the experience of other states, to such a degree as to give 
us abundant cause for congratulation that we have been 
able to resist a popular error, though subjecting ourselves 
to the taunts and reproaches of those who adopted a dififer- 
ent pohcy. It is well for states and individuals to be be- 
hind the spirit of the age when that spirit impels us only 
to embarrassment and bankruptcy. When we see works 
of magnificent extent and grandeur, constructed at a cost 
almost too great for belief pronounced, as state works, 
failures, and thrown upon the market for the purpose of 
relieving the people of the expense of keeping them up, 
we have abundant cause to be thankful that we are not m 
a like predicament, and that we took warning in time." 
The people of other states were burdened with taxation 
to support works which they had been persuaded would 
give relief from all taxes and " furnish the revenue for the 
carrying on of the state government." " The constitution," 
he continued " gives no power to tax the masses that any 
particular class or interest may be advanced. The only 
just object of taxation is to meet the wants of government, 
economically administered, and to secure the ends of pub- 
lic justice. Whenever a government extorts more than is 
absolutely necessary for these purposes it becomes an op- 
pression." 

" The first duty of the state is to pay what she now owes 
and then avoid the accumulation of any surplus l)y a 
speedy reduction in the rate of taxation. The loans 
granted the several railroad companies, by acts of the last 
Legislature, have not been called for; and had application 



19T] Construction of Railroads. 79 

been made it would have been in vain on account of lack 
of funds, and to have re-emitted the bills or notes of the 
old state banks, long since in liquidation would have been 
violating the Constitution of the United States." ** Thus 
subsided the strongest wave of enthusiasm that had yet 
made for state aid to internal improvements in Alabama, 
This, too, was the last effort made prior to the Civil War 
to laimch the state into such a policy. 

State Aid: Since the Civil War. — In 1867 the agitation 
was renewed and Alabama, for the first time in her history, 
adopted a policy of public aid to railroad building. Dur- 
ing the session of 1866-7 the Legislature passed an " Act 
to establish a system of internal improvements in the 
State of Alabama." The act declared that " whenever 
any railroad company now incorporated by the General 
Assembly of the state of Alabama, should have finished, 
completed and equipped twenty continuous miles of road at 
either or both ends of the road it should be the duty of the 
Governor of the state, and he is hereby required to endorse, 
on the part of the state, the first mortgage bonds of the 
said railroad company to the extent of twelve thousand 
dollars per mile for that portion thus finished, completed 
and equipped, and when a second section of twenty miles 
is finished, completed and equipped, it shall be the duty 
of the Governor, and he is hereby required to endorse the 
first mortgage bonds of the said railroad company, upon 
the presentation of said mortgage bonds by said company, 
to the extent of twelve thousand dollars per mile for the 
second section of twenty miles, and this rate and extent of 
endorsement shall be continuous upon the same condition 
for each subsequent section of twenty miles until said 
railroad is completed." On August 7, 1868" the above 
act was amended. After the completion of the first 
twentv miles the bonds should be endorsed as under the 



House Journal, p. 18, Session 1857-58. 
Acts of Alabama, 1865, p. 17. 



80 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [198 

original act, " and when a second section of five miles 
is finished, completed and equipped it shall be the duty 
of the Governor and he is hereby required to endorse the 
first mortgage bonds of said railroad company to the 
extent of twelve thousand dollars per mile for the second 
section of five miles, and this rate and extent of endorse- 
ment shall be continued upon the same condition for each 
subsequent section of five miles, until said road is com- 
pleted."*' In 1868 William H. Smith, the Provisional 
Governor of the state, in his message to the Legislature 
reviewed the policy of the state toward internal improve- 
ments under the old regime, and suggests that more pro- 
gressive measures be adopted in the future. " The same sys- 
tem of labor which imposed ignorance heretofore upon the 
masses of the community led our law makers to neglect the 
elements of wealth with which Alabama is blessed beyond 
almost any other state — to change our policy in regard to 
these interests, to foster every enterprise that seeks to 
develop the natural wealth of the state and attract hither 
a great portion of the great tide of the foreign immigra- 
tion as well as of the skilled laborers and capital of the 
North will be a pleasant and profitable task, and will doubt- 
less engage your early and earnest attention." " The 
legislative halls were thus filled with that spirit of progress 
which was born in the first flushes of the new regime. 
There are evidences, too, that some of the members were 
peculiarl)' susceptible to those mercenary influences which 
have been quite potent in the legislative history of so 
many of our states when dealing with large corporate 
interests. A plan yet more positive was adopted by act 
approved September 22, 1868. The rate, or extent, of 
endorsement was now increased to sixteen thousand dol- 
lars per mile. After the completing and equipment of the 
first twenty miles the first bonds should be endorsed and 
the endorsement should be repeated at the completion 



* Acts of Alabama, 1868, p. 198. 

** Governor's Message, July 14, 1868. 



199] Construction of Railroads. 81 

of each subsequent five mile section. At this session of 
the Legislature was also passed " an Act to authorize the 
several counties and towns and cities of the State of Ala- 
bama to subscribe to the capital stock of such railroads 
throughout the state as they may consider most conducive 
to their respective interests." *' The question of " Sub- 
scription " or " No subscription " was to be determine^ by 
the vote of " qualified electors " of the counties and 
towns whenever the president and directors of a railroad 
company should signify to the authorities (county com- 
missioners, or mayors of municipalities) their desire to 
obtain loans on subscriptions to stock; then the said 
authorities were to order elections to be " conducted in 
the same manner and by the same officers as are now 
provided by law." If the vote should declare for " No 
subscription " it is declared lawful for the authorities 
to order a second election if the interested railroad 
company should make another apphcation within twelve 
months. If a majority of the qualified voters declare 
for " Subscription " then bonds, to the extent of the 
amount voted, are required to be issued to the company in 
exchange for certificates of stock. The interest on the 
bonds is to be met by a tax levied and assessed by county 
commissioners or municipal authorities. The latter were 
given full power of procedure against the " tax-assessors 
and collectors and their sureties " for the amount of said 
taxes which they might fail or refuse to assess and collect. 
To put these loans or subscriptions on a firm basis the 
Legislature, by act approved March i, 1870.'' "legalized, 
ratified and confirmed in all respects " all acts and things 
of every kind heretofore done and performed in this state 
for railroad purposes, in substantial compliance with the 
provisions of the act of December 31, 1868. Under this 
act of 1868 many of the counties and municipal localities 

"Acts of Alabama, 1868, p. 514. 
*"* Acts of Alabama, 1869-70, p. 286. 
6 



82 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [200 

in Alabama became liberal subscribers to railroad enter- 
prises and incurred debts from which many have not even 
yet succeeded in extricating themselves, and no dividends 
have, as a rule, accrued to the shares owned in the railroad 
stocks. 

The above loans authorized to be made by the state were 
to be secured by "first mortgage bonds." In 1869 the 
State Auditor referred to the fact that the value of roads 
which had secured loans, including all main and side tracks, 
all rolling stock, in fact, " everything that could be em- 
braced by a first mortgage bond," was less than thirteen 
thousand dollars per mile, " full, fair and just valuation as 
per afifidavits of the Presidents and Secretaries of the roads." 
He emphasizes the danger threatening the state from mak- 
ing loans at the rate of sixteen thousand dollars per mile, 
and urges that the law should be repealed." Governor 
Smith, though an enthusiast for state aid, thought the law 
was too broad, and forced the state to aid in constructing 
local schemes of rival and jealous communities. As no end 
to the loans was in sight he recommended that the law be 
repealed."" The Legislature, however, did not concur in 
this view. " The railroads again triumph in the struggle. 
It is not my province to inquire how that triumph was 
eflfected," said Governor Lindsay in referring to the pro- 
ceedings of this body." 

The general endorsement system was re-enacted," and 
additional and special aid was granted to four railroads as 
follows : 

South & North Alabama Railroad Company, $6,000 per 
mile added to former endorsement, thus making $22,000 
per mile for this road." 

" Auditor's Report, October i, 1869. 
°° Message of Governor, November 16, 1869. 
" Message of Governor Lindsay, January 24. 1871. 
" Act approved by Governor Smith, February 21, 1870. Acts of 
Alabama, 1869-70, p. 149. 
" March 3, 1870, Ibid., p. 374. 



20] ] Construction of Railroads. 83 

Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad Company, granted a 
loan of $2,000,000." this in addition to the endorsement 
already made by the state. 

Montgomery & Eufaula Railroad Company, granted a 
loan of $300,000 in addition to the regular endorsement of 
$16,000 per mile.°° 

Mobile & ^Montgomery Railroad Company, Governor to 
endorse on the part of the state bonds to the extent of 
$2,500,000.°" 

In his message of January 24, 1871, Governor Lindsay 
informed the Legislature that it was impossible to ascertain 
" to what extent bonds under the various statutes have 
been endorsed and issued by the state. Neither in the 
executive office, nor in any other ofifice of the government, 
can be found a record of the action of the executive in 
this regard. I have no knowledge of the form of the 
bonds, except those of the Montgomery & Mobile and of 
the Montgomery & Eufaula Railroads; and, unless from 
rumors or unofficial information, I cannot even suppose 
the number of bonds endorsed to any company, the time 
when and where payable, or whether endorsed or issued 
according to law." " In this state of confusion the finances 
of Alabama remained until final adjustment was made 
during the administration of Governor S. Houston. The 
latter, on December 7, 1874, in a message to the Legisla- 
ture,'* recommended the enactment of a law providing for 
the ascertaining and final adjustment of the state's in- 
debtedness. In practical conformity to the plan there sug- 
gested, the Legislature passed an act ^^ authorizing the 
Governor to act as an " ex-ofificio member," with two others 
whom he should appoint, of a " board of commissioners," 

" February 25, 1870, Ibid., p. 175. 

■" March 3, 1870, Ibid., p. 376. 

" February 25, 1870, Ibid., p. 175. 

" House Journal, 1870-71. 

^ Senate Journal, 1874-75, p. 106. 

" Approved December 17, 1874. Acts of Alabama, 1874-75, P- 102. 



84 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [302 

whose duty it should be to " ascertain, hquidate and adjust 
the subsisting legal liabilities of the State of Alabama " the 
adjustment and settlement to be " approved and ratified 
by the General Assembly " before it becomes binding on 
the state. Levi W. Lawler and T. B. Bethea were appointed 
by Governor Houston and with him constituted the Board 
of Commissioners by which the settlement was finally 
arranged with the railroad companies. 

The Commissioners, after having been engaged about 
twelve months in this work, submitted their report"" to the 
Legislature on January 24, 1876. Owing to the incom- 
pleteness of the records of the bonds issued and endorsed, 
the Commissioners addressed inquiries to the bondholders 
through papers published in Alabama, New York and 
London. All creditors of the state were requested to 
present their claims for adjustment. It was thus ascer- 
tained that the indebtedness of the state was $30,037,563, 
an amount " equal to one-fifth of all the property of the 
people " of the state.'" Of this amount a large share was 
incurred in the interest of railroad building, and was dis- 
tributed as follows i'"* 

Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad *" $7,300,000.00 

Selma, Marion and Memphis 765,000.00 

New Orleans and Selma 320,000.00 

Selma and Gulf 640,000.00 

East Alabama and Cincinnati 400,000.00 

Montgomery and Eufaula " 1,580,000.00 

Savannah and Memphis 142,000.00 

$11,147,000.00 
Unpaid interest due on these bonds to January 24, 

1876 $3,474,000.00 

$14,621,000.00 

"" Senate Journal, 1875-76, p. 202-32. 

°' Ibid., p. 218. " Ibid., p. 214. 

"' Endorsed bonds $5,300,000 plus $2,000,000 straight bonds. The 
endorsed bonds exceeded by $580,000 the maximum amount author- 
ized by any possible construction of the laws. 

" Endorsed bonds $1,280,000 plus $300,000 straight bonds. 



203] Construction of Railroads. 85 

In addition to this amount, straight seven per cent inter- 
est-bearing bonds were held by the following railroads i*"* 

South and North Alabama $ 732,000.00 

Grand Trunk 220,000.00 

Savannah and Memphis 204,000.00 

$1,156,000.00 

We thus have an indebtedness of $15,777,000.00 to be 
adjusted by the Commissioners. The latter in their report 
recommend the following plan of adjustment: For the 
$5,300,000.00 endorsed bonds of the Alabama & Chatta- 
nooga Railroad were to be issued $1,000,000.00 in "new 
state direct bonds," bearing interet at four per cent and 
maturing in thirty years from their date. The $2,000,000.00 
of " straight " bonds loaned to the Alabama and Chatta- 
nooga Railroad were to be returned and delivered to the 
state of Alabama, and in exchange for these bonds the 
state should surrender all bonds and mortgages held 
against the road. Thus Alabama was to relinquish all 
claims to lands "^ and all other property belonging to the 
road, and in return was to be released from all liabilities 
to the road except the $1,000,000.00 new bonds to be issued.*^ 

"'An act of April 21, 1873 (Acts of Alabama, iS>72-J2i. P- 45) au- 
thorized the Governor to issue these straight bonds af'the rate of 
$4,000 per mile to such roads as would relinquish all their endorsed 
bonds. Only the above three roads saw fit to make the exchange. 
These direct bonds of $1,156,000 were received by these roads in 
exchange for $5,103,000 of endorsed bonds. This latter amount 
added to the above sum $11,147,000 gives us a total of $16,250,000 
of bonds loaned to, and endorsed for the various railroads during 
this period. 

*" The state held mortgages on the lands donated by the Federal 
Government for the construction of this road. 

"' These were " the terms of a proposed settlement by way of 
compromise, arrived at after prolonged discussion " between the 
Board of Commissioners " and Mr. T. W. Snagge, the standing 
counsel of the corporation of foreign bondholders, acting under the 
council of the corporation, to confer with the Governor and other 
Commissioners." Report of Commissioners, Senate Journal, 
1875-76, p. 224. 



86 Internal Improvements in Alabama. [204 

As to the other five roads for which bonds had been en- 
dorsed — (a) Alontgoniery & Eufaula, (b) East Alabama & 
Cincinnati, (c) Selma & Gulf, (d) New Orleans & Selma, 
(e) Selma, Marion & Memphis — the Conmiissioners report 
" that there is litigation pending in the courts of this state 
and Tennessee of an important character, involving points 
of law that will in all probability very materially change the 
aspect of what is claimed as the liability of the state upon 
its endorsement of the bonds of those companies; and we 
trust may result in convincing the holders of said bonds 
that their true interest will be best advanced by their accept- 
ance of a transfer of the lien of the state created by statute, 
and giving to the state a full discharge from these pre- 
tended claims against it." "' 

For the $1,156,000.00 direct bonds issued in exchange 
for the endorsed bonds under the act of April 21, 1873, 
the report recommended '"'''' that new bonds be substituted 
" on the basis of fifty cents in the dollar of the principle of 
those outstanding, the new bond to have thirty years to 
run at five per cent per annum." This plan was adopted 
by the Legislature. An act " to ratify and confirm the 
settlement of the existing indebtedness of the state, as 
proposed in the report of the commissioners " was passed, 
by which the liabilities of the state were reduced to $1,596,- 
000.00,'" while it left " open for further settlement the liabil- 
ity of the state upon outstanding endorsements for the 
five other railroad companies " enumerated above.'' These 
latter claims were deemed bv the state to be invalid and 



"* Senate Journal, 1875-6, p. 217. "' Ibid., p. 210. 

™$i,ooo,ocK) in new bonds to be issued to the Alabama and Chat- 
tanooga Railroad Company, designated as " class C " plus $596,000, 
the limit set as the aggregate of the bonds (designated as " class 
B ") to be substituted for these bonds issued under Act of April 
21, 1873. Sections vi-vii and ix-x of the act approved Feb. 23, 
1876. 

" Report of the Committee by which the bill was drafted. Senate 
Journal, 1875-76, p. 319. 



205] Construction of Railroads. 87 

were never recognized, though efforts were made for their 
collection. 

Upon the terms of this law settlement has been made as 
the bonds have been presented for exchange, the process 
having covered a number of years." On September 30, 
1897, there were outstanding of these " B " and " C " bonds 
$1,544,000.00," which now form a part of the bonded debt 
of Alabama. By acts approved December 14, 1874, and 
Alarch 17, 1875, the Legislature repealed the acts which 
had authorized county and state aid to internal improve- 
ments.'* The constitution of Alabama, which became opera- 
tive December 6, 1875, forbids the state or " any county, 
city, town or other subdivision of the state from engaging 
in, or encouraging works of internal improvement either by 
loans of money or credit, or by becoming stockholders in 
such enterprises." " And thus ended the last chapter in 
the history of public aid to internal improvements in 
Alabama. 



" The Auditor's Report (p. 5) of 1893 shows that there had been 
issued of "class B" $578,000, leaving $18,000 still to be issued; 
and of " class C " $963,000, leaving $30,000 still to be issued. 

" " Class B " $578,000; " class C " $966,000. Auditor's Report, 
1897, p. 29. 

" Acts of Alabama, 1874-75, P- 269. 

" Constitution of Alabama, Article iv. Sections 54-55. 



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slaves in Virginia is here given for the first time. The work is chiefly based 
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viii 



CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN OPINION OF 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

BY 

CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN, Ph. D., 
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This essay attempts to study and depict the opinions of Americans 
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interest. 

Part I. Opinion of Americans Abroad. 

Thomas Jefferson in France : — First Impressions. — A Journey 
through France. — The Passing of the Notables.— The Interlude. — 
The Slates-General. 

Oouverneur Morris on the French Revolution: — Morris' Political 
Creed. — France in the Spring of 1789. — The Constituent Assemhly : 
Its Character. — The Constituent Assembly : Its Work. — The Legis- 
lative Assembly. — The Convention. 

James Monroe on the French' Revolution. 

Part II. Opinion of Americans at Home. 

First Movements of Public Opinion. — An Extraordinary Year — 
1793. — Democratic Societies. — Levelling Principles. — The Evidence 
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Cuba and International Relations 

By James Morton Callahan, Ph. D. 
503 pages, octavo. Price $3.00. 



This is a historical study in American diplomacy and international relations 
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Much of it has a direct bearing upon present conditions in the West Indies, 
and even in the Philippines. The nature of the subject has led to an exten- 
sive consideration of the American policy of territorial acquisition. 

The author has made a careful examination of original sources. The mater- 
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at Washington. 

ix 



iim 



i^ 



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JUN 14 1902 „:, ,, , ., 



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The Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History for 1899. 



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